THE  INYEREST  IN  SLAVERY 


OF  THE 


SOU  THERN  NON- SLAVEHOLDER 


BY(J.D.B.  DeBOW 


Charleston:  1830 


1434  CHEROKEE  ROAD 
LOUISVILLE  4,  KENTUCKY 


1860  Association,  \ 
Tract,  No.  5.      J 

THE 

INTEREST  IN  SLAVERY 

OF    THE 

Southern  Non-Slaveholder. 


THE  RIGHT  OF  PEACEFUL  SECESSION. 


SLAVERY   IN  THE   BIBLE 


V 


CHABLESTCm  : 

STEAM-POWER       PRESSES       OF       EVANS       k      COGSWELL, 
No.  3  Broad  and  103  East  Bay  Streets. 

1860. 


THE 


Non-Slaveholders  of  the  Sooth. 


Nashville,   Dec.  5,  1660. 

My  dear  Sir: — Whilst  in  Charleston  recently,  I  adverted,  in 
conversation  with  you,  to  some  considerations  affecting  the  ques- 
tion of  slavery  in  its  application  to  the  several  classes  of  popula- 
tion at  the  South  and  especially  to  the  non-slaveholding  class, 
who,  I  maintained,  were  even  more  deeply  interested  than  any 
other  in  the  maintainance  of  our  institutions,  and  in  the  success 
of  the  movement  now  inaugurated,  for  the  entire  social,  industrial 
and  political  independence  of  the  South.  At  your  request,  I 
promised  to  elaborate  and  commit  to  writing  the  points  of  that 
conversation,  which  I  now  proceed  to  do,  in  the  hope  that  I  may 
thus  be  enabled  to  give  some  feeble  aid  to  a  cause  which  is  worthy 
of  the  Sydneys,  Hampdens  and  Patrick  Henrys,  of  earlier  times. 

When  in  charge  of  the  national  census  office,  several  years 
since,  I  found  that  it  had  been  stated  by  an  abolition  Senator 
from  his  seat,  that  the  number  of  slaveholders  at  the  South  did 
not  exceed  150,000.  Convinced  that  it  was  a  gross  misrepresen- 
tation of  the  facts,  I  caused  a  careful  examination  of  the  returns 
to  be  made,  which  fixed  the  actual  number  at  347,255,  and  com- 
municated the  information,  by  note,  to  Senator  Cass,  who  read  it 
in  the  Senate.  I  first  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  number 
embraced  slaveholdinor  families,  and  that  to  arrive  at  the  actual 
number  of  slaveholders,  it  would  be  necessary  to  multiply  by  the 
proportion  of  persons,  which  the  census  showed  to  a  family. 
When  this  was  done,  the  number  was  swelled  to  about  2,000,000. 

Since  these  results  were  made  public,  I  have  had  reason  to 
think,  that  the  separation  of  the  schedules  of  the  slave  and  the  free, 
was  calculated  to  lead  to  omissions  of  the  single  properties,  and 
that  on  this  account  it  would  be  safe  to  put  the  number  of  families 
at  375,000,  and  the  number  of  actual  slaveholders  at  about  two 
million  and  a  quarter.  « 

Assuming  the  published  returns,  however,  to  be  correct,  it  will 
appear  that  one-half  of  the  population  of  South  Carolina,  Mississippi, 
and  Louisiana,   excluding   the   cities,  are   slaveholders,   and    that 


one-third  of  the  population  of  the  entire  South  are  similarly  cir- 
cumstanced. The  average  number  of  slaves  is  nine  to  each 
slave-holding  family,  and  one-half  of  the  whole  number  of  such 
holders  are  in  possession  of  less  than  five  slaves. 

It  will  thus  appear  that  the  slaveholders  of  the  South,  so  far 
from  constituting  numerically  an  insignificant  portion  of  its  peo- 
ple, as  has  been  malignantly  alleged,  make  up  an  aggregate, 
greater  in  relative  proportion  than  the  holders  of  any  other  spe- 
cies of  property  whatever,  ;n  any  part  of  the  world;  and  that  of  no 
other  property  can  it  be  said,  with  equal  truthfulnes,  that  it  is 
an  interest  of  the  whole  community.  Whilst  every  ot^ier  family 
in  the  States  I  have  specialb^referred  to,  are  slaveholders,  but 
one  family  in  every  three  a™  a  half  families  in  Maine,  New 
Hampshire,  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  are  holders  of  agri- 
cultural land  ;  and,  in  European  States,  the  proportion  is  almost 
indefinitely  less.  The  proportion  which  the  slaveholders  of  the 
South,  bear  to  the  entire  population  is  greater  than  that  of  the 
owners  of  land  or  houses,  agricultural  stock,  State,  bank,  or  other 
corporation  securities  anywhere  else.  No  political  economist 
will  deny  this.  Nor  is  that  all.  Even  in  the  States  which  are 
among  the  largest  slaveholding,  South  Carolina,  Georgia  and 
Tennessee,  the  land  proprietors  outnumber  nearly  two  to  one,  in 
relative  proportion,  the  owners  of  the  same  property  in  Maine, 
Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  and  if  the  average  number  of 
slaves  held  by  each  family  throughout  the  South  be  but  nine, 
and  if  one-half  of  the  whole  number  of  slaveholders  own  under 
five  slaves,  it  will  be  seen  how  preposterous  is  the  allegation  of 
our  enemies,  that  the  slaveholding  class  is  an  organized  wealthy 
aristocracy.  The  poor  men  of  the  South  are  the  holders  of  one  to 
Jive  slaves,  and  it  would  be  equally  consistent  with  truth  and  jus- 
tice, to  say  that  they  represent,  in  reality,  its  slaveholding  interest. 

The  fact  being  conceded  that  there  is  a  very  large  class  of  per- 
sons in  the  slaveholding  States,  who  have  no  direct  ownership  in 
slaves;  it  may  be  well  asked,  upon  what  principle  a  greater 
antagonism  can  be  presumed  between  them  and  their  fellow- 
citizens,  than  exists  among  the  larger  class  of  non-landholders 
in  the  free  States  and  the  landed  interest  there  ?  If  a  conflict 
of  interest  exists  in  one  instance,  it  does  in  the  other,  and  if 
patriotism  and  public  spirit  are  to  be  measured  upon  so  low  a 
standard,  the  social  fabric  at  the  North  is  in  far  greater  danger 
of  dissolution  than  it  is  here. 

Though  1  protest  against  the  false  and  degrading  standard,  to 
which  Northern  orators  and  statesmen  have  reduced  the  measure 
of  patriotism,  which  is  to  be  expected  from  a  free  and  enlightened 
people,  and  in  the  name  of  the  non-slaveholders  of  the  South, 
fling  back  the  insolent  charge  that  they  are  only  bound  to  their 
country  by  its  " loaves  and  fishes/'  and  would  be  found  derelict 
in  honor  and  principle  and  public  virtue  in  proportion  as  they  are 
needy  in  circumstances;  I  think  it  but  easy  to  show  that  the  in- 
t 


terest  of  the  poorest  non-slaveholder  among  us,  is  to  make  common 
cause  with,  and  die  in  the  Jast  trenches  in  defence  of,  the  slave 
property  of  his  more  favored  neighbor. 

The  non-slaveholders  of  the  South  may  be  classed  as  either 
such  as  desire  and  are  incapable  of  purchasing  slaves,  or  such  as 
have  the  means  to  purchase  and  do  not  because  of  the  absence  of 
the  motive,  preferring  to  hire  or  employ  cheaper  white  labor. 
A  class  conscientiously  objecting  to  the  ownership  of  slave- 
property,  does  not  exist  at  the  South,  for  all  such  scruples  have 
long  sinc^e  been  silenced  by  the  profound  and  unanswerable  argu- 
ments to  which  Yankee  controversy  has  driven  our  statesmen, 
popular  orators  and  clergy,  iff  on  the  sure  testimony  of  God's 
Holy  Book,  and  upon  the  principles  of  universal  polity,  they  have 
defended  and  justified  the  institution.  The  exceptions  which 
embrace  recent  importations  into  Virginia,  and  into  some  of  the 
Southern  cities  from  the  free  States  of  the  North,  and  some  of 
the  crazy,  socialistic  Germans  in  Texas,  are  too  unimportant  to 
affect  the  truth  of  the  proposition. 

The  non-slaveholders  are  either  urban  or  rural,  including 
among  the  former  the  merchants,  traders,  mechanics,  laborers 
and  other  classes  in  the  towns  and  cities;  and  among  the  latter, 
the  tillers  of  the  soil  in  sections  where  slave  property  either  could, 
or  could  not  be  profitably  employed. 

As  the  competition  of  free  labor  with  slave  labor  is  the  gist  of 
the  argument  used  by  the  opponents  of  slavery,  and  as  it  is  upon 
this  that  they  rely  in  support  of  a  future  social  conflict  in  our 
midst,  it  is  clear  that  in  cases  where  the  competition  cannot  pos- 
sibly exist,  the  argument,  whatever  weight  it  might  otherwise 
have,  must  fall  to  the  ground. 

Now,  from  what  can  such  competition  be  argued  in  our  cities? 
Are  not  all  the  interests  of  the  merchant  and  those  whom  he 
employs  of  necessity  upon  the  side  of  the  slaveholder?  The 
products  which  he  buys,  the  commodities  which  he  sells,  the 
profits  which  he  realizes,  the  hopes  of  future  fortune  which  sus- 
tain him;  all  spring  from  this  source,  and  from  no  other  The 
cities,  towns  and  villages  of  the  South,  are  but  so  many  agencies 
for  converting  the  products  of  slave  labor  into  the  products  of 
other  labor  obtained  from  abroad,  and  as  in  every  other  agency 
the  interest  of  the  agent  is,  that  the  principal  shall  have  as  much 
as  possible  to  sell,  and  be  enabled  as  much  as  possible  to  buy. 
In  the  absence  of  every  other  source  of  wealth  at  the  South,  its 
mercantile  interests  are  so  interwoven  with  those  of  slave  labor 
as  to  be  almost  identical.  What  is  true  of  the  merchant  is  true 
of  the  clerk,  the  drayman,  or  the  laborer  whom  he  employs — the 
mechanic  who  builds  his  houses,  the  lawyer  who  argues  his 
causes,  the  physician  who  heals,  the  teacher,  the  preacher,  etc., 
etc.  If  the  poor  mechanic  could  have  ever  complained  of  the 
competition,  in  the  cities,  of  slave  labor  with  his,  that  cause  or 
complaint  in  the  enormous  increase  of  value  of  slave  property  has 


failed,  since  such  increase  has  been  exhausting  the  cities  anu 
towns  of  slave  labor,  or  making  it  so  valuable  that  he  can  work  in 
competition  with  it  and  receive  a  rate  of  remuneration  greatly 
higher  than  in  any  of  the  non-siaveholding  towns  or  cities  at  the 
North.  In  proof  of  this,  it  is  only  necessary  to  advert  to  the  ex- 
ample of  the  City  of  Charleston,  which  has  a  larger  proportion  ot 
slaves  than  any  other  at  the  South,  where  the  first  flag  Of  Southern 
independence  was  unfurled,  and  where  the  entire  people,  with 
one  voice,  rich  and  poor,  merchant,  mechanic  and  laborer,  stand 
nobly  together.  Another  illustration  may  be  found  in>the  city 
of  New  York,  almost  as  dependent  upon  Southern  slavery  as 
Charleston  itself,  which  records  a  majority  of  nearly  thirty  thou- 
sand votes  against  the  further  progress  of  abolitionism. 

As  the  competition  does  not  exist  in  the  cities  it  is  equally  cer- 
tain that  it  does  not  exist  in  those  sections  of  the  South,  which 
are  employed  upon  the  cultivation  of  commodities,  in  which  slave 
labor  could  not  be  used,  and  that  there  exists  no  conflict  there 
except  in  the  before  stated  cases  of  Virginia  and  Texas,  and  some 
of  the  counties  of  Missouri.  Maryland  and  Kentucky.  These 
exceptions  are,  however,  too  unimportant  to  affect  the  great  ques- 
tion of  slavery  in  fifteen  States  of  the  South,  and  are  so  kept  in 
check  as  to  be  incapable  of  effecting  any  mischief  even  in  the 
communities  referred  to.  It  would  be  the  baldest  absurdity  to 
suppose  that  the  poor  farmers  of  South  Carolina,  North  Carolina 
and  Tennessee,  who  grow  corn,  wheat,  bacon  and  hogs  and 
horses,  are  brought  into  any  sort  of  competition  with  the  slaves 
of  these  or  other  States,  who,  while  they  consume  these  com- 
modities, produce  but  little  or  none  of  them. 

The  competition  and  conflict,if  such  exist  at  the  South,  between 
slave  labor  and  free  labor,  is  reduced  to  the  single  case  of  such 
labor  being  employed  side  by  side,  in  the  production  of  the  same 
commodities  and  could  be  felt  only  in  the  cane,  cotton,  tobacco 
and  rice  fields,  where  almost  the  entire  agricultural  slave  labor 
is  exhausted.  Now,  any  one  cognizant  of  the  actual  facts,  will 
admit  that  the  free  labor  which  is  employed  upon  these  crops, 
disconnected  from  and  in  actual  independence  of  the  slave- 
holder, is  a  very  insignificant  item  in  the  account,  and  whether  in 
accord  or  in  conflict  would  affect  nothing  the  permanency  and 
security  of  the  institution.  It  is  a  competition  from  which  the 
non-slaveholder  cheerfully  retires  when  the  occasion  offers,  his 
physical  organization  refusing  to  endure  that  exposure  to  tropical 
suns  and  fatal  miasmas  which  alone  are  the  condition  of  profita- 
ble culture  and  any  attempt  to  reverse  the  laws  which  God  has 
ordained,  is  attended  with  disease  and  death.  Of  this  the  poor 
white  foreign  laborer  upon  our  river  swamps  and  in  our  southern 
cities,  especially  in  Mobile  and  New  Orleans,  and  upon  the  public 
works  of  the  South,  is  a  daily  witness. 

Having  then  followed  out,  step  by  step,  and  seen  to  what 
amounts  the  so  much   paraded  competition  and  conflict   between 


the  non-slaveholding  and  slaveholding  interests  of  the  South;  I 
will  proceed  to  present  several  general  considerations  which 
must  be  found  powerful  enough  to  influence  the  non-slave- 
holders, if  the  claims  of  patriotism  were  inadequate,  to  resist  any 
attempt  to  overthrow  the  institutions  and  industry  of  the  section 
to  which  they  belong. 

1.  The  non- slaveholder  of  the  South  is  assured  that  the  remu- 
neration afforded  by  his  labor,  over  and  above  the  expense  of  living, 
is  larger  than  that  which  is  afforded  by  the  same  labor  in  the  free 
States.  To  be  convinced  of  this  he  has  only  to  compare  the 
value  of  labor  in  the  Southern  cities  with  those  of  the  North, 
and  to  take  note  annually  of  the  large  number  of  laborers  who 
are  represented  to  be  out  of  employment  there,  and  who  migrate 
to  our  shores,  as  well  as  to  other  sections.  No  white  laborer  in 
return  has  been  forced  to  leave  our  midst  or  remain  without 
employment.  Such  as  have  left,  have  immigrated  from  States 
where  slavery  was  less  productive.  Those  who  come  among  us 
are  enabled  soon  to  retire  to  their  homes  .with  a  handsome  com- 
petency. The  statement  is  nearly  as  true  for  the  agricultural 
as  for  other  interests,  as  the  statistics  will  show. 

The  following  table  was  recently  compiled  by  Senator  Johnson, 
of  Tennessee,  from  information  received  in  reply  to  a  circular 
letter  sent  to  the  points  indicated. 

Daily  wages  in  New  Orleans,  Charleston  and  Nashville  : 

Bricklayers.         Carpenters.         Laborers 
$2*to3£  *2*to2f  $ltol*. 

Daily  wages  in  Chicago,  Pittsburg  and  Lowell,  Mass. : 

Bricklayers.         Carpenters.         Laborers. 
JMito$2  31}  to  If  75c  to  «1. 

The  rates  of  board  weekly  for  laborers  as  given  in  the  census 
of  1850,  were  in  Louisiana  §2  70,  South  Carolina  $1  75,  Tennes- 
see $1  32,  in  Illinois  §1  49,  Pennsylvania  $1  72,  Massachusetts 
$2  12.  The  wages  of  the  agricultural  classes  as  given  in  Parlia- 
mentary reports  are  in  France  820  to  $30  per  annum  with  board. 
In  Italy  812  to  §20  per  annum.  In  the  United  States  agricultu- 
ral labor  is  highest  in  the  Southwest,  and  lowest  in  the  Northwest, 
the  South  and  North  differing  very  little,  by  the  official  returns. 

2.  The  non- slaveholders,  as  a  class,  are  not  reduced  by  the  neces- 
sity of  our  condition,  as  is  the  case  in  the  free  States,  to  find  employ- 
ment in  crowded  cities  and  come  into  competition  in  close  and  sickly 
workshops  and  factories,  with  remorseless  and  untiring  machinery. 
They  have  but  to  compare  their  condition  in  this  particular  with 
the  mining  and  manufacturing  operatives  of  the  North  and 
Europe,  to  be  thankful  that  God  has  reserved  them  for  a  better 
fate.  Tender  women,  aged  men,  delicate  children,  toil  and  labor 
there  from  early  dawn   until  after  candle   light,  from  one  year  to 


another,  for  a  miserable  pittance,  scarcely  above  the  starvation 
point  and  without  hope  of  amelioration.  The  records  of  British 
free  labor  have  long  exhibited  this  and  those  of  our  own  manu- 
facturing States  are  rapidly  reaching  it  and  would  have  reached 
it  long-  ago,  but  for  the  excessive  bounties  which  in  the  way  of 
tariffs  have  been  paid  to  it,  without  an  equivalent  by  the  slave- 
holding  and  non-slaveholding  laborer  of  the  South.  Let  this 
tariff  cease  to  be  paid  for  a  single  year  and  the  truth  or  what  is 
stated  will  be  abundantly  shown. 

3.  The  non-slaveholder  is  not  subjected  to  that  competition  with 
foreign  pauper  labor,  whicli  has  degraded  the  free  labor  of  the  North 

and  demoralized  it  to  an  extent  which  perhaps  can  never  be  estimat- 
ed. From  whatever  cause,  it  has  happened,  whether  from  cli- 
mate, the  nature  of  our  products  or  of  our  labor,  the  South  has 
been  enabled  to  maintain  a  more  homogeneous  population  and 
show  a  Jess  admixture  of  races  than  the  North.  This  the  sta- 
tistics show. 

RATIO  OF  FOREIGN  TO  NATIVE  POPULATION. 

Eastern  States 12.65  in  every  100 

Middle  States 19.84     " 

Southern  States 1.86     "  " 

South-western  States 5.34     "  " 

North-western  States 12.75     "  « 

Our  people  partake  of  the  true  American  character,  and  are 
mainly  the  descendants  of  those  who  fought  the  battles  of  the 
Revofution,  and  who  understand  and  appreciate  the  nature  and 
inestimable  value  of  the  liberty  which  it  brought.  Adhering  to 
the  simple  truths  of  the  Gospel  and  the  faith  of  their  fathers,  they 
have  not  run  hither  and  thither  in  search  of  all  the  absurd  and 
degrading  isms  which  have  sprung  up  in  the  rank  soil  of  infideli- 
ty. They  are  not  Mormons  or  Spiritualists,  they  are  not  Owen- 
ites,  Fourierites,  Agrarians,  Socialists,  Free-lovers  or  Millerites. 
They  are  not  for  breaking  down  all  the  forms  of  society  and  of 
religion  and  re-constructing  them;  but  prefer  law,  order  and 
existing  institutions  to  the  chaos  which  radicalism  involves.  The 
competition  between  native  and  foreign  labor  in  the  Northern 
States,  has  already  begotten  rivalry  and  heart-burning,  and  riots; 
and  lead  to  the  formation  of  political  parties  there  which  have 
been  marked  by  a  degree  of  hostility  and  proscription  to  which 
the  present  age  has  not  afforded  another  parallel.  At  the  South 
we  have  known  none  of  this,  except  in  two  or  three  of  the 
larger  cities,  where  the  relations  of  slavery  and  freedom  scarcely 
exist  at  all.  The  foreigners  that  are  among  us  at  the  South  are 
•of  a  select  class,  and  from  education  and  example  approximate 
very  nearly  to  the  native  standard. 

4.  The  non-slaveholder  of  the  South  preserves  the  status  of  the 
white  man,  and  is  not  regarded  as  an  inferior  or  a  dependant.     He 


9 


is  not  told  that  the  Declaration  of  Independence,   when  it  says 
that  all  men  are  born  free  and   equal,  refers  to  the  negro  equally 
with   himself.     It  is  not  proposed  to  him   that   the   free   negro's 
vote  shall  weigh  equally  with  his  own  at  the  ballot-box,  and°that 
the  little  children  of  both  colors  shall  be  mixed  in  the  classes  and 
benches  of  the  school-house,  and  embrace  each  other  filially  in 
its   outside   sports.     It   never   occurs   to   him,  that  a   white    man 
could  be  degraded  enough  to  boast  in  a  public,  assembly,  as  was 
recently  done    in   New   York,  of  having    actually   slept   with   a 
negro.     And  his  patriotic  ire  would  crush   with  a  blow  the  free 
negro  who  would  dare,  in   his  presence,  as  is  done  in  the  free 
States,  to  characterize  the  father  of  the  country  as  a  "scoundrel." 
No  white  man  at  the  South  serves  another  as  a  body  servant,  to 
clean  his  boots,  wait  on  his  table,  and  perform  the   menial  ser- 
vices of  his  household.       His  blood  revolts  against  this,  and  his 
necessities  never  drive  him   to  it.      He  is  a  companion   and   an 
equal       When  in  the  employ  of  the  slaveholder,  or  in  intercourse 
with  him,  he  enters  his  hall,  and  has  a  seat  at  his  table.     If  a 
distinction  exists,  it  is  only  that  which  education  and  refinement 
may  give,  and   this   is   so   courteously   exhibited    as  scarcely   to 
strike  attention.     The  poor  white  laborer  at  the  North  is  at"  the 
bottom  of  the  social  ladder,  whilst  his  brother  here  has  ascended 
several  steps  and  can  look  down  upon  those  who  are  beneath  him, 
at  an  infinite  remove. 

5.  The  non-slaveholder  knows  that  as  soon  as  his  savings  will 
admit,  he  can  become  a  slaveholder,  and  thus  relieve  his  wife  from 
the  necessities  of  the  kitchen  and  the  laundry,  and  his  children  from 
the  labors  of  the  field.  This,  with  ordinary  frugality,  can,  in  gene- 
ral, be  accomplished  in  a  few  years,  and  is  a  process  continually 
going  on.  Perhaps  twice  the  number  of  poor  men  at  the  South 
own  a  slave  to  what  owned  a  slave  ten  years  ago.  The  universal 
disposition  is  to  purchase.  It  is  the  first  use  lor  savings,  and  the 
negro  purchased  is  the  last  possession  to  be  parted  with.  If  a 
woman,  her  children  become  heir-looms  and  make  the  nucleus  of 
an  estate.  It  is  within  my  knowledge,  that  a  plantation  of  fifty 
or  sixty  persons  has  been  established,  from  the  descendants  of  a 
single  female,  in  the  course  of  the  lifetime  of  the  original  pur- 
chaser. 

6.  The  large  slaveholders  and  proprietors  of  the  South  begin  life 
in  great  part  as  non- slaveholders.  It  is  the  nature  of  property  to 
change  hands.  Luxury,  liberality,  extravagance,  depreciated 
land,  low  prices,  debt,  distribution  among  children,  are  continu- 
ally breaking  up  estates.  All  over  the  new  States  of  the  South- 
west enormous  estates  are  in  the  hands  of  men  who  began  life  as 
overseers  or  city  clerks,  traders  or  merchants.  Often  the  over- 
seer marries  the  widow.  Cheap  lands,  abundant  harvests,  high 
prices,  give  the  poor  man  soon  a  negro.  His  ten  bales  ol  cotton 
bring  him  another,  a  second  crop  increases  his  purchases,  and  so 
he  goes  on  opening  land  and  adding  labor  until  in  a  lew  years  his 


10 

draft  for  $20,000  upon  his  merchant  becomes  a  very  marketable 
commodity. 

7.  But  should  such  fortune  not  be  in  reserve  for  the  non-slave, 
holder,  he  will  understand  that  by  honesty  and  industry  it  may  be 
realized  to  his  children.  More  than  one  generation  of  poverty  in 
a  family  is  scarcely  to  be  expected  at  the  South,  and  is  against 
the  general  experience.  It  is  more  unusual  here  for  poverty  than 
wealth  to  be  preserved  through  several  generations  in  the  same 
family. 

8.  The  sons  of  the  non- slaveholder  are  and  have  always  been 
among  the  leading  and  ruling  spirits  of  the  South;  in  industry  as 
well  as  in  politics.  Every  man's  experience  in  his  own  neighbor- 
hood will  evince  this.  He  has  but  to  task  his  memory.  In  this 
class  are  the  McDuffies,  Langdon  Cheves,  Andrew  Jacksons, 
Henry  Clays,  and  Rusks,  of  the  past;  the  Hammonds,  Yanceys, 
Orrs,  Memmingers,  Benjamins,  Stephens,  Soules,  Browns  of  Mis- 
sissippi, Simms,  Porters,  Magraths,  Aikens,.  Maunsel  Whites, 
and  an  innumerable  host  of  the  present;  and  what  is  to  be  noted, 
these  men  have  not  been  made  demagogues  for  that  reason,  as  in 
other  quarters/ but  are  among  the  most  conservative  among  us. 
Nowhere  else  in  the  world  have  intelligence  and  virtue  discon- 
nected from  ancestral  estates,  the  same  opportunities  for  advance- 
ment, and  nowhere  else  is  their  triumph  more  speedy  and  signal. 

9.  Without  the  institution  of  slavery,  the  great  staple  products  of 
the  South  would  cease  to  be  grown,  and  the  immense  annual  results, 
which  are  distributed  among  every  class  of  the  community,  and 
ivhich  give  life  to  every  branch  of  industry,  would  cease.  The 
world  furnishes  no  instances  of  these  products  being  grown  upon 
a  large  scale  by  free  labor.  The  English  now  acknowledge  their 
failure  in  the  East  Indies.  Brazil,  whose  slave  population  nearly 
equals  our  own,  is  the  only  South  American  State  which  has  pros- 
pered. Cuba,  by  her  slave  labor,  showers  wealth  upon  old  Spain, 
whilst  the  British  West  India  Colonies  have  now  ceased  to  be  a 
source  of  revenue,  and  from  opulence  have  been,  by  emancipation, 
reduced  to  beggary.  St.  Domingo  shared  the  same  fate,  and  the 
poor  whites  have  been  massacred  equally  with  the  rich. 


EXPORTS. 

1789.  1860. 

Haiti, $27,829,000     $5  to  6,000,000 

Sugar  is  no  longer  exported,  and  the  quantity  of  Coffee  scarcely 
exceeds  one-third,  and  of  Cotton  one-tenth,  of  the  exports  of  1789. 
This  I  give  upon  Northern  authority. 

Jamaica.  1805.  1857. 

Sugar 150,352  hhds.         30,459  hhds. 

Rum 93,950      "  15,991      " 

Coffee 24,137,393  lbs.  7,095,623  lbs. 


11 

The  value  of  the  present  slave  production  of  the  South  is  thus 
given  : 

United  States  Exports  for  1859. 

Of  Southern  Origin—  1859. 

Cotton 11,61,434*938 

Tobacco ...  21,074,038 

Rice 2,207,048 

Naval  Stores 3/594,474 

Sugar 196,735 

IVfroJasses 75,699 

Hemp 9,227 

Total 188,693,496 

Other  from  South 8,10*5,632 

Cotton  .Manufactures 4,989,733 

Total  from  South 19:5,389,351 

From  the  North 78,217,202 

Toial  Merchandise 27S,392,080 

Specie 57,502,305 

To  the  Southern  credit,  however,  must  be  given  : 
60  percent,  of  the  cotton  manufactured,  being,  for  raw 

materials $3,669,106 

Breadstuff's     (the    North    having    received    from    the 

South  a  value  as  lar^e  in  these  as  the  whole  foreign 

export) 40,047,000 

43,716,106 
Add 198,389;351 

Southern 242,105,457 

Northern  contributions 34,501,008 

10.  If  emancipation  be  brought  about  as  ivill  undoubtedly  be  the 
case,  unless  the  encroachments  of  the  fanatical  majorities  of  the 
North  are  resisted  now  the  slaveholders,  in  the  main,  will  escape 
the  degrading  equality  which  must  result,  by  emigration,  for  which 
they  would  ftave  the  means,  by  disposing  of  their  personal  chattels  : 
VJliiht  the  non-slaveholders,  without  these  resources,  would  be  com- 
pelled to  remain  and  endure  the  degradation.  This  is  a  startling 
consideration.  In  Northern  communities,  where  the  free  negro 
is  one  in  a  hundred  of  the  total  population,  he  is  recognized  and 
Acknowledged  often  as  a  pest,  and  in  many  cases  even  his  pres- 
ence is  prohibited  by  law.  What  would  be  the  case  in  many  of 
our  Slates,  where  every  other  inhabitant  is  a  negro,  or  in  many  of 
our  communities,   as   for  example  the  parishes  around  and  about 


12 

Charleston,  and  in  the  vicinity  of  New  Orleans  where  there  are 
from  twenty  to  one  hundred  negroes  to  each  white  inhabitant? 
Low  as  would  this  class  of  people  sink  by  emancipation  in  idle- 
ness, superstition  and  vice,  the  white  man  compelled  to  live 
among  them,  would  by  the  power  exerted  over  him,  sink  even 
lower,  unless  as  is  to  be  supposed  he  would  prefer  to  suffer  death 
instead. 

In  conclusion,  my  dear  sir,  I  must  apologize  to  the  non-slave- 
holders of  the  South,  of  which  class,  I  was  myself  until  very 
recently  a  member,  for  having  deigned  to  notice  at  all  the  infa- 
mous libels  which  the  common  enemies  of  the  South  have  circu- 
lated against  them,  and  which  our  every-day  experience  refutes; 
but  the  occasion  seemed  a  fitting  one  to  place  them  truly  and 
rightly  before  the  world.  This  I  have  endeavored  faithfully  to 
do.  They  fully  understand  the  momentous  questions  which  now 
agitate  the  land  in  all  their  relations.  They  perceive  the  inevita- 
ble drift  of  Northern  aggression,  and  know  that  if  necessity  impel 
to  it,  as  1  verily  believe  it  does  at  this  moment,  the  establishment 
of  a  Southern  confederation  will  be  a  sure  refuge  from  the  storm. 
In  such  a  confederation  our  rights  and  possessions  would  be  secure, 
and  the  wealth  being  retained  at  home,  to  build  up  our  towns  and 
cities,  to  extend  our  railroads,  and  increase  our  shipping,  which  now 
goes  in  tariffs  or  other  involuntary  or  voluntary  tributes,*  to  other 
sections;  opulence  would  be  diffused  throughout  all  classes,  and  we 
should  become  the  freest,  the  happiest  and  the  most  prosperous  and 
powerful  nation  upon  earth. 

Your  obedient  servant, 

J.  D.  B.  DeBOW. 

Robert  N.  Gourdin,  Esq.,  Charleston,  S.  C. 


^The  annual  drain  in  profits  which  is  going  on  from  the  South  to  the  North  is 
thus  set  down  by  Mr.  Kettell,  of  New  York: 

Bounties  to  fisheries,  per  annum $1,500,000 

Customs,  per  annum,  disbursed  at  the  North. 40,000,000 

Profits  of  manufacturers , 30,000.000 

Profits  of  importers 16  000,000 

Profits  of  shipping,  imports  and  exports 40,000,000 

Profits  "bf  travellers 60,000,000 

Profits  of  teachers  and  others  at  the  South,  sent  North 5,000,000 

Profits  of  agents,  brokers,  commissions,  etc 10,000,000 

Profits  of  capital  drawn  from  the  South 30^000,000 

Total  from  these  sources $231,500,000 

This,  from  the  beginning  of  the  Government,  making  all  proper  deduction 
from  year  to  year,  has  given  to  the  North  over  $2,500,000,000  of  Southern 
wealth.  Are  her  accumulations,  then,  surprising,  and  can  one  be  surprised  if 
accumulation  should  appear  to  be  less  in  the  South  ! 


13 


The  "1860  Association"  commends  the  perusal  of  the  follow 
ing  extraet  from  a  communication   to  the  Boston  Courier  of  8th 
December,  1860,  signed  •'<  Langdon."     Emanating  from  a  North- 
ern source,  it  possesses  peculiar  interest. 


HAS    THE    GENERAL    GOVERNMENT     THE    RIGHT    TO    COERCE    A    STATE  ? 

To  consider  this  question,  a  distinction  must  first  be  drawn  between  the  right 
of  war  and  the  exercise  of  a  constitutional  function  of  the  government  on  itself, 
in  a  constitutional  way.  The  right  of  war  exists  oniy  against  other  govern- 
ments—and by  the  law  of  nations,  it  is  immaterial  whether  these  are  usurp- 
ing or  legitimate  governments.  It  suffices  that  each  party  has  an  actual  posses- 
sion or  Government,  a  control  de  facto  over  some  territory  or  people  which  it 
enjoys,  disconnected  with,  or  by  dispossessing  the  other's  -oven. meat.  The 
writers  on  public  law  agree  that  a  declaration  ol  war  necessarily  admits  that 
the  party  declared  against  is  an  actual  government— even  though  its  legitimacy 
as  a  government  may  be  the  very  point  in  dispute;  and  because  it  is,  in  fact,  a 
government,  other  nations  who  have  treaties  of  amity  and  peace  with  the  one, 
may  enter  into  like  treaties  with  the  other,  and  recognize  the  government  de 
fncio  without  impairing  their  neutrality  or  violating  their  obligations  of  amity 
"and  peace  to  those  who  claim  legitimate  authority  over  the  government  dc  facto. 
It  is  not  from  the  length  of  time  that  the  government  de  facto  has  existed,  but 
from  the  fact  that  the  opposing  government  claiming  to  be  legitimate,  cannot 
control  the  other  by  civil  means,  and  has  not  an  actual  military  possession  and 
control  over  it— that  other  nations  are  justified  in  treating  it  as  a  government 
and  entering  into  alliances  with  it.  Thus,  in  our  own  War  of  Independence, 
after  the  declaration,  Spain,  Holland,  and  France,  acknowledged  the  independ- 
ence of  the  Colonies,  and  formed  treaties,  without  those  acts  violating  their 
existing  treaties  with  England. 

Jf.  then,  the  secession  of  a  State  from  this  Union  were  followed  by  a  declara- 
tion of  war  atrainst  her  by  the  United  States,  such  declaration  would  open  to 
foreign  nations  the  right  to  make  alliances  and  treaties  with  her,  commercial 
and  otherwise,  without  therebv  violating  their  treaties  with  the  United  States; 
and  all  Europe,  if  their  interests  or  sympathies  led  them  in  that  direction,  would 
be  morally  free  to  aid  and  help  her  in  sustaining  her  act  of  secession. 

Attempts  to  coerce  by  war,  then,  would  tend,  by  relieving  foreign  nations  from 
the  obligation  of  non-interference  in  domestic  questions,  to  confirm  secession, 
and  to  expose  what  ought  to  be  a  purely  domestic  question  of  constitutional 
construction  to  the  complications  and  embarrassments  which  rival  powers  could 
easily  create,  without  endangering  existing  treaties.  It  would  be  the  most 
effectual  means  of  removing  all  the  obligations  of  a  State,  and  enabling-  her  to 
resist  any  return  to  them.  No  one  could  be  so  foolish  as  to  desire  to  submit  the 
construction  of  the  Constitution  of  this  Union  to  the  interference  of  foreign  and 
hostile  nations.  It  would  surely  bring  down  on  this  Union  the  calamity  of  dis- 
union, and  in  itself  be  unconstitutional.  The  construction  of  the  Constitution  is 
domestic  to  the  States  of  the  Union,  and  should  be  adjusted  through  their 
domestic  machinery,  without  exposing  these  States,  by  the  imprudence  of  hos- 
tilities, to  that  ioreign  interference  which  the  Union  was  created  to  avoid. 

Half  the  strength  of  these  Colonies  in  the  Revolution  was  derived  from  for- 
eign interference,  and  had  England,  by  avoiding  force,  kept  the  question  of  tax- 
ation purely  domestic,  she  might  have  preserved,  instead  of  losing,  her  connex- 
ion with  her  Colonies,  and  been  spared  the  hatred  that  has  survived  the  hostili- 
ties that  gave  it  birth  by  more  than  eighty  years.  It  was  madness  in  her  so  to 
act  as  to  let  in  the  rival  and  jealous  powers  of  Europe  to  give  aid  and  comfort 
to  the  weaker  side.     Let  such  madness  be  avoided  by  us. 


14 

The  free  people  of  the  thirty-three  States  of  this  Union  boast  that  their  obedi 
ence  is  paid  to  the  power  of  the  laws  they  make,  and  not  to  the  persons  who 
are  entrusted  with  the  duty  of  executing  them;  that  resistance  to  tyrants  is 
obedience  to  God. 

We  may  as  well  commence  this  examination  by  the  proposition — That  if  a 
seceding  State  cannot  be  coeiced  by  the  general  government  without  violating  the 
Constitution  and  the  laivsy  then  she  cannot  be  coerced  at  all.  This  remits  us  to  two 
enquiries:  What  is  the  offence  against  the  Constitution  by  a  State  when  she  se- 
cedes? and,  What  Constitutional  mode  and  means  of  punishment  or  prevention 
by  the  general  government  exist  ?  It  is  not  our  purpose  to  draw  the  line  between 
secession  and  revolution,  as  abstract  ideas;  we  are  content  to  examine  a  single 
case,  which  is  stated  thus  :  The  people  of  a  sovereign  State  in  Convention  secede 
from  the  Union  by  repealing  the  ratification  she  gave  to  the  Constitution  of  that 
Union  of  17SS.  What  is  the  offence?  and  what  the  means  of  prevention  or  pun- 
ishment ?  * 

We  admit  that  while  she  remains  in  the  Union  there  are  many  means  pointed 
out  by  the  Constitution  to  compel  her  citizens  to  obedience  to  the  law.  The  Con- 
stitution was  binding  upon  her  citizens,  because  the  State  in  her  sovereignty 
sitting  in  Convention  adopted  it,  or  to  use  the  better  expression,  ratified  it.  The 
Constitution  was  a  mere  projector  speculation  of  a  Convention  of  philosophers 
when  it  came  to  the  State  Convention— it  depended  on  the  people  of  each  State 
in  its  State  Convention  for  the  power  to  become  a  law;  and  because  States 
were  sovereign  and  did  ratify  it,  therefore  it  became  part  and  parcel  of  the  State 
Constitutions,  of  equal  force  and  obligation  with  the  other  organic  acts  of  the 
people  of  the  States  in  their  sovereignty,  providing  for  a  government  for  the 
State.  It  has  the  like  force  on  the  sovereign  people  of  a  State  with  their  Consti- 
tution, and  no  more,  no  less,  in  this,  that  it  purports  to  represent  the  will  of  the 
State,  and  is  law  so  long  as  it  has  the  solemn  consent  of  the  people  of  the  State, 
acting  in  their  sovereignty.  By  a  Constitution,  the  people  of  a  State  delegate  the 
power  of  representing  their  sovereignty;  but  they  do  not  renounce  the  sovereign- 
ty or  transfer  it.  A  Constitution  makes  agents  "to  exercise  powers  of  govern- 
ment, and  limits  and  defines  the  spheres,  and  powers  of  these  agents,  the  serv- 
ants of  the  people.  It  does  not  transfer  the  sovereignty  from  the  people  to  their 
agents,  making  the  agent  to  be  sovereign,  and  the  former  sovereign  to  be  the 
subject.  On  the  contrary,  every  constitutional  government  announces  that  all 
powers  are  derived  from  the  will  of  the  people,  and  all  powers  not  granted  by  the 
people  are  reserved.  The  agent  cannot  have  more  powers  than  the  principal. 
The  creature  cannot  be  greater  than  the  creator.  Let  us  look  at  the  ratifying 
part  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  It  was  proposed  that  when  nine 
States  should  agree  that  this  instrument  should  be  part  of  their  constitution,  or 
organic  law;  then  this  general  agent  should  be  organized  and  go  into  force.  Tljje 
Congress  of  the  old  confederation,  whom  this  new  plan  proposed  to  supplant, 
were  friendly  to  the  submission  of  the  new  plan  ;  but  mark  the  logic, — the  plan 
provided  for  the  extinction  of  the  old  confederation  by  secession.  The  Congress 
favored  it.  and  the  Conventions  of  the  States  were  called  to  consider  the  seces- 
sion from  the  Confederation  and  the  adoption  of  the  new  constitution.  Nine 
States  peacefully  seceded  in  1787  and  17b8.  Two  States— Rhode  Island  and 
North  Carolina — lingered  a  year  and  a  half  before  they  joined  the  new  Confed- 
eration: North  Carolina  not  joining  until  satisfactory  amendments  were  made  to 
the  Constitution,  and  Rhode  Island  joining  upon  conditions. 

Notwithstanding  the  12th  article  of  confederation  says,  the  articles  shall  be 
inviolably  preserved  and  the  Union  be  perpetual,  and  no  alteration  shall  be  here- 
after made  unless  it  be  confirmed  by  the  Legislature  of  every  State,  yet  there  has 
never  been  a  question  that  the  States  could  not  rightfully  secede  from  the.  old 
Confederation,  although  its  articles  of  constitution  were  entitled  "articles  of  con- 
federation and  perpetual  union,"  and  in  the  new  Constitution  as  amended,  the 
words,  reserving  to  the  States  all  powers  not  granted,  are  as  clear  as  in  the  Ar- 
ticles of  Confederation  (see  Art.  10):  "The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United 
States  by  the  Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  States,  are  reserved  to  the 
States  respectively,  or  to  the  people."  It  follows,  then,  that  if  secession  was  no 
offence  in  1788  against  the  old  Confederation,  unless  words  granting  away  the 
right  to  secede  are  found  in  the  new  Constitution,  or  words  prohibiting  secession 
to  the  States,  then  the  right  is  reserved  intact  by  the  several  States.  We  find  no 
such  grant  nor  such  prohibition.  The  right  of  secession  remains  a  part  of  the 
sovereignty  of  the  respective  States,  just  as  perfectly  as  when  they  last  exercised 


15 

it  in  17S8-9  in  order  to  adopt  this  present  Constitution.  It  is  nowhere  made  an 
offence  against  the  new  government  for  the  State  to  resume  its  delegated  powers. 
Whilst  she  is  in  the  Union  the  delegation  of  powers  is  good  against  her,  because 
the  theory  of  the  Union  is  the  delegating  the  same  powers  by  each  State  to  the  one 
general  agent.  It  is  the  equality  of  rights  and  equality  of  obligations  that  makes 
the  base  and  substance  of  the  Union — and  the  Act  of  each  State  in  her  sover- 
eighty  makes  the  Supreme  Court  of  ihe  United  States  the  judge  of  all  questions 
arising  under  that  grant  of  powers,  but  not  on  other  subjects.  Finding,  then, 
neither  grant  by  the  States,  nor  prohibition  to  them,  of  their  sovereign  power  to 
secede,  and  having  shown  that  when  called  on  to  ratify  this  Convention  they 
were  asked  to  do  it  by  the  act  of  secession  from  the  existing  one — it  may  well  be 
deemed,  this  power  remains  in  the  people  of  the  Slate,  unless  we  find  some  neces- 
sary implication  of  an  inconsistent  nature  arising  elsewhere  in  the  Constitution  : 
such  as  a  errant  of  power  to  coerce  a  State  when  negligent  of  her  obligations  un- 
der the  Constitution.  Is  there  any  such  grant  ?  None  appears — powers  over 
individuals  appear.  The  judges  of  a  State  are  commanded  to  obedience  to  the 
decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court,  but  there  are  no  words  commanding  the  legisla- 
tures of  the  several  States.  Those  holding  the  executive  power  of  the  States  in 
the  Union  may,  perhaps,  be  reached  directly  through  the  judiciary  as  individuals, 
(as  Congress  has  attempted  in  the  last  Consular  act  on  the  subject  of  granting 
passports)  but  no  implication  as  to  the  States  in  their  sovereignty  is  to  be  discov- 
ered. Congress,  even,  is  only  authorized  to  make  laws  for  executing  the  powers 
granted  to  itself  and  those  vested  in  the  Government  by  this  Constitution,  or  in 
any  department  or  officer  thereof.  This  subject  maybe  still  more  conclusively 
set  at  rest  by  referring  to  the  journals  of  the  Convention  that  formed  the  Consti- 
tution. 

We  find  there  that  Mr.  Edmund  Randolph's  programme,  included  a  power  to 
coerce  States  who  were  negligent  of  their  duties  or  engagements,  but  that  the 
Convention  steadfastly  resisted  and  rejected  the  granting  of  such  a  power  to 
the  General  Government.  It  was  not  incorporated  in  the  Constitution  when  sub- 
mitted to  the  States  for  their  approval.  This  is  not  all.  So  jealous  were  the 
several  States,  lest  this  power  afterwards  might  be  assumed  by  construction,  that 
only  six  States  ratified  the  Constitution  unconditionally.  Six  other  States 
attached  conditions  to  their  ratification,  either  directly  as  conditions,  or  els 
declaring  the  construction  of  the  Constitution  on  which  they  ratified  it,  and  in- 
sisting that  this  construction  should  be  made  more  clear  by  amendments  and 
explicit  declarations.  One  State,  North  Carolina,  refused  to  give  even  a  condi- 
tional ratification,  before  the  amendments  were  made.  The  leading  condition  of 
construction  thus  made  imperative  by  the  concordant  action  of  the  States  form- 
ing the  Union,  was  immediately  afterwards  substantially  adopted  as  an  amend- 
ment, being  article  10th  :  "  that  the  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by 
the  Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  States,  are  reserved  to  the  States 
respectively  or  to  the  people."  The  States  who  insisted  on  thus  ••making  assur- 
ance doubly  sure."  with  regard  to  the  limits  of  the  delegation  of  powers,  were 
South  Carolina.  New  York.  Virginia,  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire  and  Rhode 
Island,  with  whom  North  Carolina  stood.  (Vide  Elliott's  Debates  on  the  Federal 
Constitution,  Vol.  4,  Ratification  of  the  States.)  The  power  to  coerce  cannot 
then  be  derived  from  any  just  implication,  and  was  refused  to  be  incorporated 
originally  in  the  Constitution.  The  States  who  formed  this  Union  stood  after  it 
was,  both  by  their  conditional  ratification  and  by  the  amendment  article  10, 
adopted  and  put  into  existence  as  a  general  government,  exactly  as  they  stood  in 
relation  to  the  old  confederation,  when  they  declared,  July  9th.  177S.  that  their 
style  should  be  the  United  States  of  America,  and  that  "  Each  State  retains  its 
sovereignty,  freedom,  independence,  and  every  power,  jurisdiction  and  right, 
which  is  not  by  this  confederation  expressly  delegated  to  the  United  States,"  so 
far  as  their  reserved  rights  were  concerned.  Coming,  then,  to  a  closer  considera- 
tion of  the  objects  of  the  Union  of  these  United  States,  and  of  the  delegation  of 
powers  to  effect  those  objects,  we  find  that  the  recitals  of  the  objects  of  the  "per- 
petual union"  established  in  1777.  coincide  perfectly  with  the  objects  of  the  "more 
perfect  union"  commenced  in  1737,  so  far  as  each  provides  for  the  mutual  and 
general  welfare,  common  defence  and  security  of  their  liberties.  In  the  Consti- 
tution, we  find  "to  establish  justice  and  insure  domestic'tranquility,"  added  to  the 
prior  objects.  It  does  not  appear  from  the  avowed  objects  of  Ihe  Union  of  the 
States,  any  more  than  from  the  grants  of  powers  to  the  General  Government,  or 
from  the  prohibition  to  the  States  to  exercise  certain  acts  of  sovereign  power 


16 

whilst  in  the  Union,  that  a  prohibition  of  the  authority  to  secede  from  the  Union, 
or  the  power  to  coerce  a  State,  were  either  of  them  included  in  the  articles  of 
the  Constitution,  or  that  any  State  has  ever  ratified  to  the  United  States  these 
parts  of  her  sovereign  powers,  or  been  even  asked  to  separate  them  from  her 
sovereignty.  And  when  we  contemplate  that  the  framers  of  the  Constitution 
proposed  the  peaceful  secession  of  nine  States  from  the  old  Confederation  to  the 
new  one,  as  the  only  means  of  starting  or  instituting  this  present  general  gov- 
ernment, how  can  it  be  imagined  that  they  looked  with  such  horror  on  secession 
by  act  of  the  people,  in  State  sovereignty,  as  to  mark  with  eternal  future  repro- 
bation, the  act  they  were  then  inviting  the  States  to  take? 

The  people  of  one  State  surrendered  no  part  of  their  sovereignty  over  their 
own  State  to  other  States.  Whilst  in  the  Union,  the  Constitution  is  their  law, 
because  it  is  their  act.  The  general  government  has  no  sovereignty  over  any 
State  of  this  Union.  It  is  the  agent  of  the  States,  having  several  powers  from 
each;  it  can  touch  no  subject  not  included  in  the  powers  granted  to  it  by  the 
States.  We  have  seen  that  neither  the  pretence  of  coercion  nor  the  pretence 
of  secession  being  prohibited  to  a  State  is  supported  by  the  record.  The  gene- 
ral government  has  no  power  to  act  in  a  case  of  secession.  It  concerns  the 
States,  in  their  sovereignty,  ami  is  beyond  the  limited  sphere  of  the  general 
government.  Whom,  then,  does  secession  concern  1  And  is  there  any  remedy 
or  retribution?  We  answer  that  it  concerns  the  other  States,  in  that  portion  of 
their  sovereignty  not  delegated  to  the  general  government,  nor  even  to  the 
State  legislatures.  It  concerns  the  sovereign  people  of  each  State  in  this 
Union,  and  them  only.  Congress  has  no  powers  to  represent  them.  The  people 
of  the  sovereign  States  have  delegated  no  powers  to  any  agent,  State  or  general, 
to  represent  them.  In  their  conventions  alone  can  they  meet  this  issue,  by 
either  delegating  powers  to  some  agent  or  agencies  equal  to  the  emergency;  or 
consider  what  other  appropriate  remedies,  if  any,  are  necessary.  To  the  ques- 
tion, is  there  any  retribution  for  secession?  we  say:  not  under  the  Constitution. 
But  outside  of  the  Constitution,  is  retribution  to  be  sought?  If  the  States  feel 
justly  offended  because  the  seceding  State  has  withdrawn  from  their  alliance, 
they  can  treat  her  as  a  hostile  neighbor,  a  nation  with  whom  they  have  cause  of 
war,  and  may  follow  her  with  all  the  means  that  the  law  of  nations  points  out  in 
cases  of  public  war.  If  they  conquer  her,  they  may  make  her  a  territory,  or 
annex  her  as  territory  to  some  State  of  the  Union.  But  from  the  moment  of 
secession  she  has  no  rights  in  the  sisterhood  of  States — no  protection  in  the 
Constitution.  She  is  alien  and  stranger.  Whether  the  States  will  resort  to  the 
harsh  means  of  war,  and  rush  into  the  discords  of  social  evils  sure  to  follow  in 
the  footsteps  of  such  a  war,  or  whether  recognizing  some  justice  in  their 
grievances,  peaceful  means  to  mitigate  by  treaties  the  evils  of  disunion,  or  else 
by  timely  additional  guarantees  in  the  Constitution,  to  give  full  assurance  of 
the  equality  and  protection  demanded  in  the  Union,  are  questions  of  future 
policy  for  discussion  in  each  State. 


THE  CHARACTER  AND  INFLUENCE 


OF 


ABOLITIONISM. 


EXTRACTS     FROM     A      SERMON    PREACHED    BY     REV.     HENRY    J.     VAN    DYKE. 


The  First  Presbyterian  church,  corner  of  Remsen  and  Clinton 
streets,  Brooklyn,  was  recently  densely  crowded  with  a  highly  in- 
telligent congregation,  who  listened  with  marked  interest  and  atten- 
tion  to  a  discourse  from  their  pastor,  Rev.  Henry  J.  Van  Dyke,  on  the 
Character  and  Influence  of  Abolitionism  from  a  Scriptural  point  of 
view.  In  his  opening-  supplication,  the  reverend  gentleman  prayed  ( 
that  Providence  would  bless  our  Southern  brethren  and  restrain  the 
passion  of  the  evil  among  them  ;  that  the  master  might  be  made 
Christ's  servantr  and  the  servant  Christ's  freeman,  and  so  both  sit 
together,  united  in  Christian  love,  in  that  church  founded  by  Christ 
and  His  Apostles,  in  which  there  is  neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  male  nor 
female,  bond  nor  free,  but  all  are  one  in  Christ  Jesus.  He  also 
prayed  that  God  would  bless  the  people  of  the  Northern  States, 
restrain  the  violence  of  fanatical  men,  provide  for  those  who,  by  the 
agitation  of  the  times,  have  been  thrown  out  of  employment,  keep 
the  speaker  himself  from  teaching  anything  which  was  not  in  accord- 
ance with  the  Divine  will,  and  disabuse  the  minds  of  his  hearers  of 
all  prejudice  and  passion,  so  that  they  might  be  willing  to  be  con- 
vinced of  the  truth. 

His  text  was  chosen  from  St.  Paul's  First  Epistle  to  Timothy,  sixth 
chapter,  from  the  first  to  the  fifth  verse,  inclusive  : 

1.  "Let  as  many  servants  as  are  under  the  yoke  count  their  own 
masters  worthy  of  all  honor,' that  the  name  of  God  and  his  doctrine 
be  not  blasphemed. 

2  "And  they  that  have  believing  masters  let  them  not  despise 
them,  because  they  are  brethren  ;  but  rather  do  them  service,  because 
they  are  faithful  and  beloved,  partakers  of  the  benefit.  These  things 
teach  and  exhort. 

3.  "  If  any  man  teach  otherwise,  and   consent  not   to  wholesome 
2 


18 

words,  even  the  words  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  the  doctrine 
which  is  according   to  godliness  ; 

4.  "  He  is  proud,  knowing  nothing  but  doting  about  questions  and 
strife  of  words  whereof  cometh  envy,  strife,  railings,  evil  surmisings, 

5.  "  Perverse  disputings  of  men  of  corrupt  minds,  and  destitute  of 
the  truth,  supposing  that  gain  is  godliness:  from  such  withdraw 
thyself." 

I  propose,  he  said,  to  discuss  the  character  and  influence  of  aboli- 
tionism. With  this  view,  I  have  selected  a  text  from  the  Bible,  and 
purpose  to  adhere  to  the  letter  and  spirit  of  its  teaching.  We 
acknowledge  in  this  place  but  one  standard  of  morals,  but  one  author- 
itative and  infallible  rule  of  faith  and  practice.  For  we  are  Christ- 
ians here;  not  Papists  to  bow  down  to  the  dictation  of  any  man  or 
church;  not  heathen  philosophers,  to  grope  our  way  by  the  feeble 
glimmerings  of  the  light  of  nature;  not  modern  infidels,  to  appeal 
from  the  written  law  of  God  to  the  corrupt  and  fickle  tribunal  of 
reason  and  humanity;  but  Christians,  on  whose  banner  is  inscribed 
this  sublime  challenge — "To  the  law  and  to  the  testimony — if  they 
speak  not  according  to  this  word,  it  is  because  there  is  no  light  in 
them."' 

Let  me  direct  your  special  attention  to  the  language  of  our  text. 
There  is  no  dispute  among  commentators,  there  is  no  room  for  dispute 
as  to  the  meaning  of  the  expression  "servants  under  the  yoke." 
Even  Mr.  Barnes,  who  is  himself  a  distinguished  abolitionist,  and  has 
done  more  perhaps,  than  any  other  man  in  this  country  to  propagate 
abolition  doctrines,  admits  that  "  the  addition  of  the  phrase  'under 
the  yoke'  "  shows  undoubtedly  that  it  (i.  e.  the  original  wrord  doulos) 
is  to  be  understood  here  of  slavery.  Let  me  quote  another  testimony 
on  this  point  from  an  eminent  Scotch  divine,  I  mean  Dr.  McK night, 
whose  exposition  of  the  epistle  is  a  standard  work  in  Great  Britain 
and  in  this  country,  and  whose  associations  must  exempt  him  from 
all  suspicion  of  pro-slavery  prejudices.  He  introduces  his  exposition 
of  this  chapter  with  the  following  explanation  : — "  Because  the  law 
of  Moses  allowed  no  Israelite  to  be  made  a  slave  for  life  without  his 
own  consent,  the  Judaizing  teachers,  to  allure  slaves  to  their  party, 
taught  that  under  the  gospel,  likewise,  involuntary  slavery  is  unlawful. 
This  doctrine  the  apostle  condemned  here,  as  in  his  other  epistles,  by 
enjoining  Christian  slaves  to  honor  and  obey  their  masters,  whether 
they  were  believers  or  unbelievers,  and  by  assuring  Timothy  that  if 
any  person  taught  otherwise,  he  opposed  the  wholesome  precepts  of 
Jesus  Christ  and  the  doctrine  of  the  gospel,  which  in  all  points  is 
conformable  to  godliness  or  sound  morality,  and  was  puffed  up 
with  pride,  without  possessing  any  true  knowledge  either  of  the 
Jewish  or  Christian  revelation. "  Our  learned  Scotch  friend  then 
goes  on  to  expound  the  passage  in  the  following  paraphrase,  which 
we  commend  to  the  prayerful  attention  of  all  whom  it  may  concern  : 

*'Let  whatever  Christian  slaves  are  under  the  yoke  of  unbelievers 
pay  their  own  masters  all  respect  and  obedience,  that  the  character 
of  God  whom  we  worship  may  not  be  calumniated,  and  the  doctrine 
of  the  gospel   may  not   be  evil   spoken  of  as  tending  to    destroy  the 


19 

political  rf6nts  of  mankind.  And  those  Christian  slaves  who  have 
believing  masters,  let  them  not  despise  them,  fancying  that  they  are 
their  equals  because  they  are  their  brethren  in  Christ;  for,  though 
all  Christians  are  equal  as  to  religious  privileges,  slaves  are  inferior 
to  their  masters  in  station.  Wherefore,  let  them  serve  their  masters 
more  diligently,  because  they  who  enjoy  the  benefit  of  their  service, 
are  believers  and  beloved  of  God.  *  These  things  teach,  and  exhort 
the  brethren  to  practice  them.'  If  any  one  teach  differently  by 
affirming  that,  under  the  gospel,  slaves  are  not  bound  to  serve  their 
masters,  but  ought  to  be  made  free,  and  does  not  consent  to  the  whole- 
some commandments  which  are  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ's,  and  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  gospel  which  in  all  points  is  conformable  to  true 
morality,  he  is  puffed  up  with  pride,  and  knoweth  nothing  either  of 
the  Jewish  or  the  Christian  revelations,  though  he  pretends  to  have 
great  knowledge  of  both.  But  is  distempered  in  his  mind  about  idle 
questions  and  debate  of  words  which  afford  no  foundation  for  such 
a  doctrine,  but  are  the  source  of  envy,  contention,  evil  speaking,  un- 
just suspicion  that  the  truth  is  not  sincerely  maintained,  keen  disput- 
ings  carried  on  contrary  to  conscience  by  men  wholly  corrupted  in 
their  minds  and  destitute  of  the  true  doctrine  of  the  gospel,  who 
reckon  whatever  produces  most  money  is  the  best  religion  ;  from  all 
such  impious  teachers  withdraw  thyself,  and  do  not  dispute  with 
them." 

The  text,  as  thus  expounded  by  an  American  abolitionist  and  a 
Scotch  divine,  (whose  testimony  need  not  be  confirmed  by  quotations 
from  all  the  other  commentators,)  is  a  prophecy  written  for  these 
days,  and  wonderfully  applicable  to  our  present  circumstances.  It 
gives  us  a  life-like  picture  of  abolitionism  in  its  principles,  its  spirit 
and  its  practice,  and  furnishes  us  plain  instruction  in  regard  to  our 
duty  in  the  premises.  Before  entering  upon  the  discussion  of  the 
doctrine,  let  us  define  the  terms  employed.  By  abolitionism  we 
mean  the  principles  and  measures  of  abolitionists.  And  what  is  an 
abolitionist?  He  is  one  who  believes  that  slaveholding  is  sin,  and 
ought  therefore  to  be  abolished.  This  is  the  fundamental,  the  char- 
acteristic, the  essential  principle  of  abolitionism — that  slaveholding 
is  sin — that  holding  men  in  involuntary  servitude  is  an  infringement 
upon  the  rights  of  man,  a  heinous  crime  in  the  sight  of  God.  A 
man  may  believe  on  political  or  commercial  grounds  that  slavery  is 
an  undesirable  system,  and  that  slave  labor  is  not  the  most  profita- 
ble; he  may  have  various  views  as  to  the  rights  of  slaveholders 
under  the  constitution  of  the  country;  he  may  think  this  or  that  law 
upon  the  statute  books  of  Southern  States,  is  wrong;  but  this  does 
not  constitute  him  an  abolitionist,  unless  he  believes  that  slavehold- 
ing is  morally  wrong.  The  alleged  sinfulness  of  slaveholding,  as  it 
is  the  characteristic  doctrine,  so  it  is  the  strength  of  abolitionism  in 
all  its  ramified  and  various  forms.  It  is  by  this  doctrine  that  it  lays 
hold  upon  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  men,  that  it  comes  as  a 
disturbing  force  into  our  ecclesiastical  and  civil  institutions,  and  by 
exciting  religious  animosity,  (which  all  history  proves  to  be  the 
strongest  of  human  passions,)  imparls  a  peculiar  intensity  to  every 


20 

contest  into  which  it  enters.  And  you  will  perceive  it  is  just  here 
that  abolitionism  presents  a  proper  subject  for  discussion  in  the  pul- 
pit— for  it  is  one  great  purpose  of  the  Bible,  and  therefore  one  great 
duty  of  God's  ministers  in  its  exposition,  to  show  what  is  sin  and, 
what  is  not.  Those  who  hold  the  doctrine  that  slaveholding  is  sin,, 
and  ought  therefore  to  be  abolished,  differ  very  much  in  the  extent  to 
which  they  reduce  their  theory  to  practice.  In  some  this  faith  is; 
almost  without  works.  They  content  themselves  with  only  voting  in  ' 
such  a  way  as  in  their,  judgment  will  best  promote  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  their  views.  Others  stand  off  at  what  they  suppose  a 
safe  distance,  as  Shimei  did  when  he  stood  on  an  opposite  lull  to 
curse  King  David,  and  rebuke  the  sin  and  denounce  divine  judg- 
ments upon  the  sinner.  Others  more  practical,  if  not  more  prudent, 
go  into  the  very  midst  of  the  alleged  wickedness  and  teach  "ser- 
vants under  the  yoke"  that  they  ought  not  to  count  their  own  masters- 
worthy  of  all  honor — that  liberty  is  their  inalienable  right — which 
they  should  maintain,  if  necessary,  even  by  the  shedding  of  blood. 
Now,  it  is  not  for  me  to  decide  who  of  all  these  are  the  truest  to  their 
own  principles.  It  is  not  for  me  to  decide  whether  the  man  who 
preaches  this  doctrine  in  brave  words,  amid  applauding  multitudes 
in  the  city  of  Brooklyn,  or  the  one  who,  in  the  stillness  of  the  night, 
and  in  the  face  of  the  law's  terrors,  goes  to  practice  the  preaching  at 
Harper's  Ferry,  is  the  most  consistent  abolitionist  and  the  most 
heroic  man.  It  is  not  for  me  to  decide  which  is  the  most  important 
part  of  a  tree;  and  if  the  tree  be  poisonous,  which  is  the  most  inju- 
rious, the  root,  or  the  branches,  or  the  fruit  ?  But  I  am  here  to-night,., 
in  God's  name,  and  by  His  help,  to  show  that  this  tree  of  abolition- 
ism is  evil  and  only  evil,  root  and  branch,  flower  and  leaf  and  fruit; 
that  it  springs  from  and  is  nourished  by  an  utter  rejection  of  the 
Scriptures;  that  it  produces  no  real  benefit  to  the  enslaved,  and  is 
the  fruitful  source  of  division,  and  strife,  and  infidelity  in  both> 
church  and  State.  I  have  four  distinct  propositions  on  the  subject 
to  maintain — four  theses  to  nail  up  and  defend: — 

I.  Abolitionism  has  no  foundation  in  the  Scriptures. 

II.  Its  principles  have  been  promulgated  chiefly  by  misrepresenta- 
tion and  abuse. 

III.  It  leads,  in  multitudes  of  cases,  and  by  a  logical  process,  to 
utter  infidelity. 

IV.  It  is  the  chief  cause  of  the  strife  that  agitates  and  the  danger 
that  threatens  our  country. 


I. ABOLITIONISM  HAS  NO  FOUNDATION  IN  SCRIPTURE. 

Passing  by  the  records  of  the  patriarchial  age,  and  waving  the 
question  as  to  those  servants  in  Abraham's  family,  who,  in  the  simple 
hut  expressive  language  of  Scripture,  u  were  bought  with  his  money," 
Jet  us  come  at  once  to  the  tribunal  of  that  law  which  God  promulgated 
amid  the  solemnities  of  Sinai.  What  said  the  law  and  the  testimony 
to  that  peculiar  people  over  whom  God  ruled,  and  for  whose  institu- 


21 

Sions  He  has  assumed  the  responsibility  ?     The  answer  is  in  the  25th 
chapter  of  Leviticus,  in  these  words  : 

'*  And  if  thy  brother  that  dwelleth  by  thee  be  waxen  poor,  and  be 
sold  unto  thee,  thou  shalt  not  compel  him  to  serve  as  a  bond  servant; 
but  as  a  hired  servant  and  a  sojourner  he  shall  be  with  thee,  and  shall 
serve  thee  unto  the  year  of  jubilee,  and  then  shall  he  depart  from  thee, 
both  he  and  his  children  with  him." 

So  far,  you  will  observe,  the  law  refers  to  the  children  of  Israel, 
who,  by  reason  of  poverty,  were  reduced  to  servitude.  It  was  their 
right  to  be  free  at  the  year  of  jubilee,  unless  they  chose  to  remain  in 
perpetual  bondage,  for  which  case  provision  is  made  in  other  and  dis- 
tinct enactments.  But  not  so  with  slaves  of  foreign  birth.  There 
was  no  year  of  jubilee  provided  for  them.  For  what  savs  the  law? 
Read  the  44,  40  verses  of  the  same  chapter  :  "   . 

"Both  thy  bondmen  and  thy  bondmaids  which  thou  shalt  have, 
shall  be  of  the  heathen  that  are  round  about  you.  Of  them  shall  ye 
buy  bondmen  and  bondmaids.  Morever,  of  the  children  of  the  stran- 
gers that  do  sojourn  among  you — of  them  shall  ye  buy  and  of  their 
families  that  are  with  you,  which  they  beget  in  your  iand  ;  and  they 
shall  be  your  possession.  And  ye  shall  take  them  as  inheritance  for 
your  children  after  you  to  inherit  them  as  a  possession;  they  shall  be 
your  bondmen  forever." 

There  it  is,  plainly  written  in  the  divine  law.     No  legislative  enact- 
ment;  no   statute   framed    by  legal   skill    was  ever  more  explicit  and 
incapable  of  perversion.     When    the   abolitionist  tells  me   that  slave- 
holding  is  sin,  in  the  simplicity  of  my  faith  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  I 
point  him  to  this  sacred  record,  and  tell  him  in  all  candor,  as  my  text 
does,  that  his  teaching  blasphemes  the  name  of  God  and  His  doctrine. 
When  he  begins  to  doat  about  questions  and  strifes  of  words,  appeal- 
ing to  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  asserting  that  the  idea  of 
property  in    men    is   an   enormity  and  a  crime,  I  still  hold  him  to  the 
record,  saying,  "Ye  shall  take  him  as  an  inheritance  for  your  chil- 
dren after   you    to  inherit   them    for  a  possession."     When  he  waxes 
warm — as  he  always  does  if  his  opponent  quote  Scripture  (which  is 
the  great   test   to  try   the  spirits,  whether  they  be  of  God— the  very 
spear  of  Ithuriel,  to  reveal  their  true  character) — when  he  gets  angry, 
and  begins  to  pour  out  his  evil  surmisings  and  abuse  upon  slavehold- 
ers— I  obey  the  precept  which  says,  "from  such  withdraw  thyself," 
comforting  myself  with  this  thought:  that  the  wisdom  of  God  is  wiser 
than  men,  and  the  kindness  of  God  kinder  than  men.     Philosophers 
may   reason   and    reformers   may   rave   till  doomsday,  they  never  can 
convince    me   that   God,   in   the   Levitical   law,  or   in  any  other  law, 
sanctioned  sin;  and,  as  I  know,  from  the  plain  passage  I  have  quoted, 
and  many  more  like  it,  that  He  did  sanction  slaveholding  among  His 
ancient  people.     I  know,  also,   by  the  logic  of  that  faith   which  be- 
lieves the  Bible  to  be  His  Word,  that  slaveholding  is  not  sin.     There 
are  men  even  among  professing  Christians,  and   not   a  few  ministers 
of  the  Gospel,  who  answer  this  argument    from    the    Old    Testament 
Scriptures  by  a  simple  denial  of  their  authority.     They  do  not  tell  us 
how  God  could  ever  or  anywhere  countenance  that  which  is  morally 


22 

wrong,  but  they  content  themselves  with  saying  that  the  Levitical  law 
is  no  rule  of  action  for  us,  and  they  appeal  from  its  decisions  to  what 
they  consider  the  higher  tribunal  of  the  Gospel.  Let  us,  therefore, 
join  issue  with  them  before  the  bar  of  the  New  Testament  Scriptures. 
It  is  a  historic  truth,  acknowledged  on  all  hands,  that  at. the  advent  of 
Jesus  Christ,  slavery  existed  all  over  the  civilized  world,  and  was  inti- 
mately interwoven  with  its  social  and  civil  institutions.  In  Judea,  in 
Asia  Minor,  in  Greece,  in  all  the  countries  where  the  Saviour  or  his 
Apostles  preached  the  Gospel,  slaveholding  was  just  as  common  as  it 
is  to-day  in  South  Carolina.  It  is  not  alleged  by  any  one,  or  at  least 
by  any  one  having  any  pretensions  to  scholarship  or  candor,  that  the 
Roman  laws  regulating  slavery  were  even  as  miid  as  the  very  worst 
statutes  which  have  been  passed  upon  the  subject  in  modern  times. 
It  will  not  be  denied  by  any  honest  and  well-informed  man,  that 
modern  civilization  and  the  restraining  influences  of  the  Gospel  have 
shed  ameliorating  influences  upon  the  relation  between  master  and 
slave,  which  was  utterly  unknown  at  the  advent  of  Christianity.  And 
how  did  Jesus  and  his  Apostles  treat  this  subject?  Masters  and 
slaves  met  them  at  every  step  in  their  missionary  work,  and  were 
even  present  in  every  audience  to  which  they  preached.  The  Roman 
law,  which  gave  the  full  power  of  life  and  death  into  the  master's 
hand,  was  familiar  to  them,  and  all  the  evils  connected  with  the  sys- 
tem surrounded  them  every  day  as  obviously  as  the  light  of  heaven  ; 
and  yet  it  is  a  remarkable  fact,  which  the  Abolitionist  does  not,  be- 
cause he  cannot,  deny,  that  the  New  Testament  is  utterly  silent  in 
regard  to  the  alleged  sinfulness  of  slaveholding.  In  all  the  instruc- 
tions of  the  Saviour — in  all  the  reported  sermons  of  the  inspired 
Apostles — in  all  the  epistles  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Spirit  to 
write  for  the  instruction  of  coming  generations — there  is  not  one  dis- 
tinct and  explicit  denunciation  of  slaveholding,  nor  one  precept  re- 
quiring the  master  to  emancipate  his  slaves.  Every  acknowledged 
sin  is  openly  and  repeatedly  condemned,  and  in  unmeasured  terms. 
Drunkenness  and  adultery,  theft  and  murder — all  the  moral  wrong 
which  ever  have  been  known  to  afflict  society,  are  forbidden  by  name; 
and  yet,  according  to  the  teaching  of  Abolitionism,  this  greatest  of  all 
sins — this  sum  of  all  villanies — is  never  spoken  of  except  in  respect- 
ful terms.     How  can  this  be  accounted  for? 

Let  Dr.  Wayland,  whose  work  on  moral  science  is  taught  in  many 
of  our  schools,  answer  this  question  ;  and  let  parents,  whose  children 
are  studying  that  book,  diligently  consider  his  answer.  I  quote  from 
WaylancTs  Moral  Science,  page  213: 

"The  Gospel  was  designed  not  for  one  race  or  for  one  time,  but  for 
all  races  and  for  all  times.  It  looked  not  to  the  abolition  of  slavery 
for  that  age  alone,  but  for  its  universal  abolition.  Hence  the  im-' 
portant  object  of  its  author  was  to  gain  for  it  a  lodgment  in  every 
part  of  the  known  world,  so  that,  by  its  universal  diffusion  among  all 
classes  of  society,  it  might  quietly  and  peacefully  modify  and  sub- 
due the  evil  passions  of  men.  In' this  manner  alone  could  its  object 
— a  universal  moral  revolution — have  been  accomplished.  For  if  it 
had  forbidden  the  evil,  instead  of  subverting  the  principle;  if  it  had 


23 

proclaimed  the  unlawfulness  of  slavery  and  taught  slaves  to  resist 
the  oppression  of  their  masters,  it  would  instantly  have  arrayed  the- 
two  parties  in  deadly  hostility  throughout  the  civilized  world  ;  its 
announcement  would  have  been  the  signal  of  servile  war,  and  the 
very  name  of  the  Christian  religion  would  have  been  forgotten  amidst 
the  agitation  of  universal  bloodshed." 

We  pause  not  now  to  comment  upon  the  admitted  fact  that  Jesus 
Christ  and  his  Apostles  pursued  a  course  entirely  different  from  that 
adopted  by  the  abolitionists,  including  the  learned  author  himself, 
nor  to  inquire  whether  the  teaching  of  abolitionism  is  not  as  likely  to 
produce  strife  and  bloodshed  in  these  days,  as  in  the  first  ages  of 
the  church.  What  we  now  call  attention  to  and  protest  against,  is 
the  imputation  here  cast  upon  Christ  and  his  Apostles.  Do  you  be- 
lieve the  Saviour  sought  to  insinuate  his  religion  into  the  earth  by 
concealing  its  real  design,  and  preserving  a  profound  silence  in 
regard  of  one  of  the  very  worst  sins  it  came  to  destroy  ?  Do  you 
believe  that  when  he  healed  the  centurion's  servant  (whom  every 
honest  commentator  admits  to  have  been  a  slave),  and  pronounced  that 
precious  eulogy  upon  the  master,  "I  have  not  seen  so  great  faith  in 
Israel,"  do  you  believe  that  Jesus  suffered  that  man  to  live  on  in  sin 
because  he  deprecated  the  consequences  of  preaching  abolitionism? 
When  Paul  stood  upon  Mars'  Hill,  surrounded  by  ten  thousand  times 
as  many  slaveholders  as  there  were  idols  in  the  city,  do  you  believe 
he  kept  back  any  part  of  the  requirements  of  the  gospel  because  he 
was  afraid  of  a  tumult  among  the  people?  We  ask  these  abolition 
philosophers  whether,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  idolatry  and  the  vices  con- 
nected with  it  were  not  even  more  intimately  interwoven  with  the 
social  and  civil  life  of  the  Roman  empire  than  slavery  was?  Did 
the  Apostles  abstain  from  preaching  against  idolatry?  Nay,  who 
does  not  know  that  by  denouncing  this  sin,  they  brought  down  upon 
themselves  the  whole  power  of  the  Roman  empire?  Nero  covered 
the  bod;.es  of  the  Christian  martyrs  with  pitch,  and  lighted  up  the 
city  with  their  burning  bodies,  just  because  they  would  not  withhold 
or  compromise  the  truth  in  regard  to  the  worship  of  idols.  In  the 
light  of  that  fierce  persecution,  it  is  a  profane  trifling  for  Dr.  Way 
land  or  any  other  man,  to  tell  us  that  Jesus  or  Paul  held  back  theii 
honest  opinions  of  slavery  for  fear  of  ua  servile  war,  in  which  the 
very  name  of  the  Christian  religion  would  have  been  forgotten." 
The  name  of  the  Christian  religion  is  not  so  easily  forgotten  ;  nor 
are  God's  great  purposes  of  redemption  capable  of  being  defeated  by 
an  honest  declaration  of  his  truth  every  where  and  at  all  times.  And 
yet  this  philosophy,  so  dishonoring  to  Christ  and  his  Apostles,  is 
moulding  the  character  of  our  young  men  and  women.  It  comes 
into  our  schools,  and  mingles  with  the  very  lifeblood  of  future  gen- 
erations the  sentiment  that  Christ  and  his  Apostles  held  back  the 
truth,  and  suffered  sin  to  go  unrebuked,  for  fear  of  the  wrath  of  man. 
And  all  this  to  maintain,  at  all  hazards,  and  in  the  face  of  ihe 
Saviour's  example  to  the  contrary,  the  unscriptural  dogma  that  slave- 
holding  is  sin.  But  it  must  be  observed  in  this  connexion  that  the 
Apostles  went  much  further  than  to  abstain  from  preaching  against 


24 

slaveholding.  They  admitted  slaveholders  to  the  communion  of  the 
church.  In*our  text,  masters  are  acknowledged  as  "  brethren,  faith- 
ful and  beloved,  partakers  of  the  benefit/'  If  the  New  Testament 
is  to  be  received  as  a  faithful  history,  no  man  was  ever  rejected  by 
the  apostolic  church  upon  the  ground  that  he  owned  slaves.  If  he 
abused  his  power  as  a  master,  if  he  availed  himself  of  the  authority 
conferred  by  the  Roman  law  to  commit  adultery,  or  murder,  or  cruelty, 
he  was  rejected  for  these  crimes,  just  as  he  would  be  rejected  now 
for  similar  crimes  from  any  Christian  church  in  our  Southern  States. 
If  parents  abused  or  neglected  their  children,  they  were  censured, 
not  for  having  children,  but  for  not  treating  them  properly.  And  so 
with  the  slaveholder.  It  was  not  the  owning  of  slaves,  but  the  man- 
ner in  which  he  fulfilled  the  duties  of  his  station,  that  made  him  a 
subject  for  church  discipline.  The  mere  fact  that  he  was  a  slave- 
holder no  more  subjected  him  to  censure  than  the  mere  fact  that  he 
was  a  father  or  a  husband.  It  is  upon  the  recognized  lawfulness  of 
the  relation,  that  all  the  precepts  regulating  the  reciprocal  duties  of 
that  relation  are  based. 

These  precepts  are  scattered  all  through  the  inspired  epistles. 
There  is  not  one  command  or  exhortation  to  emancipate  the  slave. 
The  Apostle  well  knew  that  for  the  present  emancipation  would  be 
no  real  blessing  to  him.  But  the  master  is  exhorted  to  be  kind  and 
considerate,  and  the  slave  to  "be  obedient,  that  so  they  might  preserve 
the  unity  of  that  church  in  which  there  is  no  distinction  between 
Greek  or  Jew,  male  or  female,  bond  or  free.  Oh,  if  ministers  of  the 
Gospel  in  this  land  or  age  had  but  followed  Paul  as  he  followed 
Christ,  and,  instead  of  hurling  anathemas  and  exciting  wrath  against 
slaveholders,  had  sought  only  to  bring  both  master  and  slave  to  the 
fountain  of  Emanuel's  blood  ;  if  the  agencies  of  the  blessed  Gospel 
had  only  been  suffered  to  work  their  way  quietly,  as  the  light  and  dew 
of  the  morning,  into  the  structure  of  society,  both  North  and  South, 
how  different  would  have  been  the  position  of  our  country  this  day 
before  God  !  How  different  would  have  been  the  privileges  enjoyed 
by  the  poor  black  man's  soul,  which,  in  this  bitter  contest,  has  been 
too  much  neglected  and  despised.  Then  there  would  have  been  no 
need  to  have  converted  our  churches  into  military  barracks  for  collect- 
ing firearms  to  carry  on  war  upon  a  distant  frontier.  No  need  for  a 
sovereign  State  to  execute  the  fearful  penalty  of  the  law  upon  the 
invader  for  doing  no  more  than  honestly  to  carry  out  the  teaching  of 
abolition  preachers,  who  bind  heavy  burdens,  and  grievous  to  be 
home,  and  lay  them  on  men's  shoulders,  while  they  touch  them  not 
with  one  of  their  fingers.  No  need  for  the  widow  and  the  orphan  to 
weep  in  anguish  of  heart  over  those  cold  graves,  for  whose  dishonor 
and  desolation  God  will  hold  the  real  authors  responsible.  No  occa- 
sion or  pretext  for  slaveholding  States  to  pass  such  stringent  laws  for 
the  punishment  of  the  secret  incendiary  and  the  prevention  of  servile 
war. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  show  what  will  be  the  condition  of  the  Afri- 
can race  in  this  country  when  the  Gospel  shall  have  brought  all 
classes  under  its  complete  dominion.     What  civil  and  social  relations 


25 

men  will   sustain   in   the   times  of  millenial  glory  I  do  not  know.     I 
cordially  embrace  the  current  opinion   of  our  church  that   slavery  is 
permitted  and  regulated  by  the  divine  law  under  both  the  Jewish  and 
Christian  dispensations,  not   as  the  final  destiny  of  the  enslaved,  but 
as  an  important  and   necessary  process   in  their  transition  from 'hea- 
thenism to  Christianity — a  wheel   in    the  great   machinery  of  Provi- 
dence, by  which  the  final  redemption   is  to  be  accomplished.     How- 
ever  this   may  be,  one   thing   I   know,  and   every   abolitionist  might 
know  it  if  he  would,  that  there  are  Christian  families  at  the  South  in 
which  a- patriarchal  fidelity  and  affection  subsist  between  the  bond 
and  the   free,  and   where   slaves  are  better  fed   and  clothed   and  in- 
structed, and  have  a  better  opportunity  for  salvation  than  the  majority 
of  laboring  people  in  the  city  of  New  York.     If  the   toqgue  of  abo- 
litionism had  only  kept  silence  these  twenty  years  past,  the  number 
of  such  families  would   be  tenfold  as  great.     Fanaticism  at  the  North 
is  one  chief  stumbling  block  in  the  way  of  the  Gospel  at  the  South. 
This  is  one  great  grievance  that  presses  to-day  upon  the  hearts  of  our 
Christian   brethren   at  the  South.     This,  in  a  measure,  explains  why 
such  men   as   Dr.  Thornwell,  of  South  Carolina,   and   Dr.  Palmer,  of 
New  Orleans — men  whose  genius  and  learning  and  piety  would  adorn 
any  state  or  station — are  willing  to  secede  from  the  Union.     They  feel 
that  the  influence  of  the   Christian   ministry  is  hindered,  and   their 
power  to  do  good  to  both  master  and  slave  crippled,  by  the  constant 
agitations  of  abolitionism  in  our  national  councils,  and   the  incessant 
turmoil  excited  by  the  unscriptural  dogma  that  slaveholding  is  sin. 

II. — THE    PRINCIPLES  OF    ABOLITIONISM    HAVE    EEEN    rROFOGATED  CHIEFLY 
BY    MISREPRESENTATION    AND    ABUSE. 

Having  no  foundation  in  Scripture,  it  does  not  carry  on  its  warfare 
by  scripture  weapons.  Its  prevailing  spirit  is  fierce  and  proud,  and 
its  language  is  full  of  wrath  and  bitterness.  Let  me  prove  this  by 
testimony  from  its  own  lips.  I  quote  Dr.  Channing,  of  Boston,  whose 
name  is  a  tower  of  strength  to  the  abolition  cause,  and  whose  memory 
is  their  continual  boast.  In  a  work  published  in  the  year  1830, 1  find 
the  following  words  : 

"The  abolitionists  have  done  wrong,  I  believe  ;  nor  is  their  wrong 
to  be  winked  at  because  done  fanatically  or  with  good  intentions  ;  for 
how  much  mischief  may  be  wrought  with  good  designs  !  They  have 
fallen  into  the  common  error  of  enthusiasts,  that  of  exaggerating  their 
object,  of  feeling  as  if  no  evil  existed  but  that  whichThey  opposed, 
and  as  jf  no  guilt  could  be  compared  with  that  of  countenancing  and 
upholding  it.  The  tone  of  their  newspapers,  so  far  as  I  have  seen 
them,  has  often  been  fierce,  bitter  and  abusive.  They  have  sent 
forth  their  orators,  some  of  them  transported  with  fiery  zeal,  to  sound 
the  alarm  against  slavery  through  the  land,  to  gather  together  young 
and  old,  pupils  from  schools,  females  hardly  arrived  at  years  of  dis- 
cretion, the  ignorant,  the  excitable,  the  impetuous,  and  to  organize 
these  into  associations  for  the  battle  against  oppression.    Very  unhap- 


26 

pily  they  preached  their  doctrine  to  the  colored  people  and  collected 
them  into  societies.  To  this  mixed  and  excitable  multitude,  minute 
heart-rending  descriptions  of  slavery  were  given  in  piercing  tones  of 
passion  ;  and  slaveholders  were  held  up  as  monsters  of  cruelty  and 
crime.  The  abolitionist,  indeed,  proposed  to  convert  slaveholders; 
and  for  this  end  he  approached  them  with  vituperation,  and  exhaust- 
ed on  them  the  vocabulary  of  abuse.  And  he  has  reaped  as  he 
sowed." 

Such  is  the  testimony  of  Dr.  Channing,  given  in  the  year  1836. 
What  would  he  have  thought  and  said  if  he  had  lived  until  the  year 
1860,  and  seen  this  little  stream, , over  whose  infant  violence  he 
lamented,  swelling  into  a  torrent  and  flooding  the  land  ?  Abolition- 
ism is  abusive  in  its  persistent  misrepresentation  of  the  legal  princi- 
ples involved  in  the  relation  between  master  and  slave.  They  reiter- 
ate, in  a  thousand  exciting  forms,  the  assertion  that  the  idea  of 
property  in  man  blots  out  his  manhood  and  degrades  him  to  the  level 
of  a  brute  or  a  stone.  "  Domestic  slavery,"  says  Dr.  Wayland,  in 
his  work  on  JVloral  Science,  "  supposes  at  best  that  the  relation 
between  master  and  slave  is  not  that  which  exists  between  man  and 
man,  but  is  a  modification  at  least  of  that  which  exists  between  man 
&nd  the  brutes."  Do  not  these  abolitionist  philosophers  know  that 
according  to  the  laws  of  every  civilized  country  on  earth  a  man  has 
property  in  his  children  and  a  woman  has  property  in  her  husband? 
The  statutes  of  the  State  of  New  York  and  of  every  other  Northern 
State  recognize  and  protect  this  property,  and  our  courts  of  justice 
have  repeatedly  assessed  its  value.  If  a  man  is  killed  on  a  railroad^ 
his  wife  may  bring  suit  and  recover  damages  for  the  pecuniary  loss 
she  has  suffered.  If  one  man  entice  away  the  daughter  of  another, 
and  marry  her  while  she  is  still  under,  age,  the  father  may  bring  a 
civil  suit  for  damages  for  the  loss  of  that  child's  services,  and  the 
pecuniary  compensation  is  the  only  redress  the  law  provides.  Thus 
the  common  law  of  Christendom  and  the  statutes  of  our  own  State 
recognize  property  in  man.  In  what  does  that  property  consist  ? 
Simply  in  such  services  as  a  man  or  a  child  may  properly  be  required 
to  render.  This  is  all  that  the  Levitical  law,  or  any  other  law,  means 
when  it  says,  "Your  bondmen  shall  be  your  possession  or  property 
and  an  inheritance  for  your  children."  The  property  consists  not  in 
the  right  to  treat  the  slave  like  a  brute,  but  simply  in  a  legal  claim 
for  such  services  as  a  man  in  that  position  may  properly  be  required 
to  render.  And  yet  abolitionists,  in  the  face  of  the  divine  law,  per- 
sist in  denouncing  the  veTy  relation  between  master  and  slave,  "  as  a 
modification,  at  least,  of  that  whi^h  exists  between  man  and  the 
brutes."  This,  however,  is  not  t  f  worst  or  most  prevalent  form 
which  their  abusive  spirit  assumes.  Their  mod*  of  arguing  the 
question  of  slaveholding,  by  a  pietended  appeal  to  facts,  is  a  tissue 
of  misrepresentation  from  beginning  to  end.  Let  me  illustrate  my 
meaning  by  a  parallel  case.  Suppose  1  undertake  to  prove  the  wick- 
edness of  marriage  as  it  exists  in  the  city  of  New  York.  In  this 
discussion  suppose   the   Bible   is  excluded,  or  at  least  that   it  is  not 


27 

recognized   as   having   exclusive  jurisdiction   in   the   decision  of  the- 
question.     My  first  appeal  is  to  the  statute  Jaw  of  the  State. 

I  show  there  enactments  which  nullify  the  law  of  God  and  make 
divorce  a  marketable  and  cheap  commodity.  I  collect  the  advertise- 
ments of  your  daily  papers,  in  which  lawyers  offer  to  procure  the 
legal  separation  of  man  and  wife  for  a  stipulated  price,  to  say  noth- 
ing in  this  sacred  place  of  other  advertisements  which  decency  for- 
bids me  to  quote.  Then  I  turn  to  the  records  of  our  criminal  courts, 
and  find  that  every  day  some  cruel  husband  beats  his  wife,  or  some 
unnatural  parent  murders  his  child,  or  some  discontented  wife  or  hus- 
band seeks  the  dissolution  of  the  marriage  bond.  In  the  next  place,. 
1  turn  to  the  orphan  asylums  and  hospitals,  and  show  there  the  mis- 
erable wrecks  of  domestic  tyranny  in  wives  deserted  and  children 
maimed  by  drunken  parents.  In  the  last  place,  I  go  through  our 
streets  and  into  our  tenement  houses,  and  count  the  thousands  of 
ragged  child rt  n,  who,  amid  ignorance  and  filth,  are  training  for  the 
prison  and  gallows.  Summing  all  these  facts  together,  I  put  them 
forth  as  the  fruits  of  marriage  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and  a  proof 
that  the  relation  itself  is  Sinful.  If  I  were  a  novelist,  and  had  writ- 
ten a  book  to  illustrate  this  same  doctrine,  I  would  call  this  array  of 
facts  a  "  Key."  In  this  Key,  I  say  nothing  about  the  sweet  charities 
and  affections  that  flourish  in  ten  thousand  homes,  not  a  word  about 
the  multitude  of  loving  kindnesses  that  characterize  the  daily  life  of 
honest  people,  about  the  instruction  and  discipline  that  aie  training 
children  at  ten  thousand  firesides  for  usefulness  here  and  glory  here- 
•after;  all  this  I  ignore,  and  quote  only  the  statute  book,  the  news- 
papers, the  records  of  criminal  courts  and  the  miseries  of  the  abodes 
of  povert}'.  Now,  what  have  I  done?  I  have  not  misstated  or  exag- 
gerated a  siagle  fact.  And  yet  am  I  not  a  falsifier  and  slanderer  of 
the  deepest  dye  !  Is  there  a  virtuous  woman  or  an  honest  man  in 
this  city,  whose  cheeks  would  not  burn  with  indignation  at  my  one- 
sided and  injurious  statements?  Now,  this  is  just  what  abolitionism 
has  done  in  regard  to  slaveholding.  It  haS  undertaken  to  illustrate 
its  cardinal  doctrine  in  works  of  fiction,  and  then,  to  sustain  the 
creation  of  its  fancy,  has  attempted  to  underpin  it  with  an  accumula- 
tion of  facts.  These  facts  are  collected  in  precisely  the  way  I  have 
described.  The  statute  books  of  slaveholding  States  are  searched,, 
and  every  wrong  enactment  collated,  newspaper  reports  of  cruelly 
and  crime  on  the  part  of  wicked  masters  art-  tieasured  up  and  classi- 
fied, all  the  outrages  that  have  been  perpetrated  "  by  lewd  fellows  of 
the  baser  sort,"  of  whom  there  are  plenty,  both  North  and  South,  are 
eagerly  seized  and  recorded,  and  tin's  mass  of  vileness  and  filth  col- 
lected from  the  kennels  and  sewers  of  society  is  put  forth  as  a  faith- 
ful exhibition  of  slaveholding.  Senators  in  the  forum  and  ministers  in 
the  pulpit,  distil  this  raw  material  into  the  more  refined  slander  "that 
Southern  society  is  essentially  barbarous,  and  that  slaveholding  had 
its  origin  in  hell."  Legislative  bodies  enact  and  re-enact  statutes,, 
which  declare  that  slaveholding  is  such  an  enormous  crime,  that  if  a 
Southern   man,  under  the  broad    shield  of  the  Constitution,  and  with 


28 

the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  country  in  his  hand,  shall 
come  within  their  jurisdiction,  and  set  up  a  claim  to  a  fugitive  slave, 
he  shall  be  punished  with  a  fine  of  $2,000  and  fifteen  years'  impris- 
onment. This  method  of  argument  has  continued,  until  multitudes 
of  honest  Christian  people  in  this  and  other  lands  believe  that  slave- 
holding  is  the  sin  of  sins,  the  sum  of  all  villanies.  Let  me  illustrate 
this  by  an  incident  in  my  own  experience.  A  few  years  since  I 
took  from  the  centre  table  of  a  Christian  family  in  Scotland,  by 
.  whom  I  had  been  most  kindly  entertained,  a  book  entitled,  "Life  and 
Manners  in  America."  On  the  blank  leaf  was  an  inscription,  stating 
that  the  book  had  been  bestowed  upon  one  of  the  children  of  the 
family  as  a  reward  of  diligence  in  an  institution  of  learning.  The 
frontispiece  was  a  picture. of  a  man  of  fierce  countenance  beating  a 
naked  woman.  The  contents  of  the  book  were  professedly  compiled 
from  the  testimony  of  Americans,  upon  the  subject  of  slavery.  1  dare 
not  quote  in  this  place  the  extracts  which  I  made  in  my  memoran- 
dum. It  will  be  sufficient  to  say  that  the  book  asserts  as  undoubted 
facts  that  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi  are  studded  with  iron  gallows 
for  the  punishment  of  slaves — that  in  the  City  of  Charleston  the 
bloody  block  on  which  masters  cut  off  the  hands  of  disobedient  ser- 
vants may  be  seen  in  the  public  squares,  and  that  sins  against  chas- 
tity are  common  and  unrebuked  in  professedly  Christian  families. 

Now,  in  my  heart,  I  did  not  feel  angry  at  the  author  of  that  book, 
nor  at  the  school  teacher  who  bestowed  it  upon  his  scholar,  for  in 
Christian  charity  I  gave  them  credit  for  honesty  in  the  case;  but 
standing  there  a  stranger  among  the  martyr  memories  of  that  glorious 
land  to  which  my  heart  had  so  often  made  its  pilgrimage,  I  did  feel 
that  you  and  I,  and  every  man  in  America  was  wronged  by  the 
revilers  of  their  native  land,  who  teach  foreigners  that  hanging  and 
cutting  off  hands,  and  beating  women,  are  the  characteristics  of  our 
life  and  manners. 

I  trust  and  pra)',  and  call  upon  you  to  unite  with  me  in  the  suppli- 
cation, that  God  would  give  abolitionists  repentance  and  a  better 
mind,  so  that  in  time  to  come  they  may  at  least  propagate  their  prin- 
ciples in  decent  and  respectful  language. 

III. ABOLITIONISM    LEADS,    IN   MULTITUDES    OF    CASES,  AND   BY   A    LOGICAL 

PROCESS,  TO  UTTER  INFIDELITY. 

On  this  point,  I  would  not,  and  will  not,  be  misunderstood.  I  do 
not  say  that  abolitionism  is  infidelity.  I  speak  only  of  the  tenden- 
cies of  the  system  as  indicated  in  its  avowed  principles  and  demon- 
strated in  its  practical  fruits. 

It  does  not  try  slavery  by  the  Bible;  but  as  one  of  its  leading 
advocates  has  recently  declared,  it  tries  the  Bible  by  the  principles 
of  freedom.  It  insists  that  the  word  of  God  must  be  made  to  support 
certain  human  opinions  or  forfeit  all  claims  upon  our  faith.  That  I 
may  not  be  suspected  of  exaggeration  on  this  point,  let  me  quote  from 


29 

the  recent  work  of  Mr.  Barnes  a  passage  which  may  well  arrest  the 
attention  of  all  thinking  men  : 

"There  are  great  principles  in  our  nature,  as  God  has  made  us, 
which  can  never  be  set  aside  by  any  authority  of  a  professed  revela- 
tion. U  a  book,  claiming  to  be  a  revelation  from  God,  by  any  fair 
interpretation  defended  slavery,  or  placed  it  on  the  same  basis  as  the 
relation  of  husband  and  wife,  parent  and  child,  guardian  and  ward, 
such  a  book  would  not,  and  could  not;  be  received  by  the  mass  of 
mankind  as  a  Divine  revelation." 

This  assumption,  that  men  are  capable  of  judging  beforehand  what 
is  to  be  expected  in  a  Divine  revelation,  is  the  cockatrice's  egg,  from 
which,  in  all  ages,  heresies  have  been  hatched.  This  is  the  spider's 
web  which  men  have  spun  out  of  their  own  brains,  and,  clinging  to 
which,  they  have  attempted  to  swing  over  the  yawning  abyss  of  infi- 
delity. Alas,  how  many  have  fallen  in  and  been  dashed  to  pieces  I 
When  a  man  sets  up  the  great  principles  of  our  nature  (by  which  he 
always  means  his  own  preconceived  opinions)  as  the  supreme  tri- 
bunal before  which  even  the  law  of  God  must  be  tried — when  a  man 
says  il  the  Bible  must  teach  abolitionism  or  I  will  not  receive  it,"  he 
has  already  cut  loose  from  the  sheet  anchor  of  faith.  True  belief 
says,  "  Speak,  Lord,  thy  servant  waits  to  hear."  Abolitionism  says, 
'Speak,  Lord,  but  speak  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of  human 
nature,  or  they  cannot  be  received  by  the  great  mass  of  mankind  as  a 
Divine  revelation." 

The  fruit  of  such  principles  is  just  what  we  might  expect.  Wher- 
ever the  seed  of  abolitionism  has  been  sown  broadcast,  a  plentiful 
crop  of  infidelity  has  sprung  up.  In  the  communities  where  anti- 
slavery  excitement  has  been  most  prevalent,  the  power  of  the  Gospel 
has  invariably  declined;  and  when  the  tide  of  fanaticism  begins  to 
subside,  the  wrecks  of  church  order  and  of  Christian  character  have 
been  scattered  on  the  shore.  I  mean  no  disrespect  to  New  Eng- 
land— to  the  good  men  who  there  stand  by  the  ancient  landmarks  and 
contend  earnestly  for  the  truth — nor  to  the  illustrious  dead  whose 
praise  is  in  all  the  churches;  but  who  does  not  know  that  the  States 
in  which  abolitionism  has  achieved  its  most  signal  triumphs  are  at 
the  same  time  the  great  strongholds  of  infidelity  in  the  land  ?  I  have 
often  thought  that  if  some  of  those  old  pilgrim  fathers  could  come 
back,  in  the  spirit  and  power  of  Elias,  to  attend  a  grand  celebration 
at  Plymouth  rock,  they  might  well  preach  on  this  text  :  "  If  ye  were 
Abraham's  children,  ye  would  do  the  works  of  Abraham."  The 
effect  of  abolitionism  upon  individuals  is  no  less  striking  and  mourn- 
ful  than  its  influence  upon  communities.  It  is  a  remarkable  and 
instructive  fact,  and  one  at  which  Christian  men  would  do  well  to 
pause  and  consider,  that  in  this  country  all  the  prominent  leaders  of 
abolitionism,  outside  of  the  ministry,  have  become  avowed  infidels; 
and  that  all  our  notorious  abolition  preachers  have  renounced  the 
great  doctrines  of  grace  as  they  are  taught  in  the  standards  of  the 
reformed  churches — have  resorted  to  the  most  violent  process  of 
interpretation  to  avoid  the  obvious  meaning  of  plain  Scriptural  texts,, 
and   ascribed   to   the  apostles  of  Christ  principles  from   which  piety 


30 

mnd  moral  courage  instinctively  revolt.  They  make  that  to  be  sin 
which  the  Bible  does  not  declare  to  be  sin.  They  denounce,  in  lan- 
guage such  as  the  sternest  prophets  of  the  Law  never  employed,  a 
relation  which  Jesus  and  His  apostles  recognized  and  regulated. 
They  seek  to  institute  tijrms  and  texts  of  Christian  communion  utterly 
at  variance  with  the  organic  law  of  the  church  as  founded  by  its 
Divine  Head;  and,  attempting  to  justify  this  usurpation  of  Divine 
prerogatives  by  an  appeal  from  God's  law  to  the  dictates  of  fallen 
human  nature,  they  would  set  up  a  spiritual  tyranny  more  odious 
and  insufferable,  because  more  arbitrary  and  uncertain  in  its  deci- 
sions, than  Popery  itself.  And  as  the  tree  is,  so  have  its  fruits  been. 
It  is  not  a  theory,  but  a  demonstrated  fact,  that  abolitionism  leads  to 
infidelity.  Such  men  as  Garrison,  and  Giddings,  and  Gerrit  Smith, 
have  yielded  to  the  current  of  their  own  principles  and  thrown  the 
Bible  overboard.  Thousands  of  humbler  men  who  listen  to  abolition 
preachers  will  go  and  do  likewise.  And  whether  it  be  the  restraints 
of  official  position,  or  the  preventing  grace  of  God,  that  enables  such 
preachers  to  row  up  the  stream  and  regard  the  authority  of  Scripture 
in  other  matters,  their  influence  upon  this  one  subject  is  all  the  more 
pernicious  because  they  prophesy  in  the  name  of  Christ.  In  this 
sincere  and  plain  utterance  of  my  deep  convictions,  1  am  only  dis- 
charging my  conscience  towards  the  flock  over  which  I  am  set. 
Wh.m  the  shepherd  seeth  the  wolf  coming,  he  is  bound  to  give 
warning. 

An  article,  published  twenty  years  ago  in  the  Princeton  Review, 
contains  this  remarkable  language  : 

"The  opinion  that  slaveholding  is  itself  a  crime  must  operate  to 
produce  the  disunion  of  the  States  and  the  division  of  all  ecclesiasti- 
cal societies  in  this  country.  Just  so  far  as  this  opinion  operates,  it 
•will  lead  those  wno  entertain  it  to  submit  to  any  sacrifices  to  carry  it 
-out  and  give  it  effect.  We  shall  become  two  nations  in  feeling, 
which  must  soon  render  us  two  nations  in  fact." 

These  words  are  wonderfully  prophetic,  and  they  who  read  the 
signs  of  the  times  must  see  that  the  period  of  their  fulfilment  draws 
wear.  In  regard  to  ecclesiastical  societies,  the  division  foretold  is 
already,  in  a  great  measure,  accomplished.  Three  of  our  great  reli- 
gious denominations  have  been  rent  in  twain  by  the  simple  question, 
"  Is  slaveholdinor  a  sin  ?" 


